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SPEECH 



OF 



CA.SSIUS m:. clj^y, 

AT FRANKFORT, KY., 

FROM THE 

Capitol Steps, January lO, 1860. 

Reported Exclusively for the Cincinnati Gazette. 



Argcmentcm. — Gov. Magoffin in his message, 
and Vice President Breckinridge, before tlie 
Kentuck}' Legislature, had assailed the principles 
and aims of the Republican party. Those Mr. 
Clay aspired to defend. Following the event of 
John Brown's raid and execution, the suppression 
of the Free South Newspaper at Newport by 
violence, the expulsion of John G. Foe and asso- 
ciates from Madison county, Ky., and the design 
on the part of the Slave Oligarchy to perpetuate 
the reign of terror in all the South ; it was gen- 
erally given out that Mr. Clay would be silenced. 
The halter with which Brown was hung, the 
bloody lance which he used in battle-^a present 
from Gov. Wise to Gov. Magoffin — was freely 
handed about and shown in Frankfort. Whilst 
a central journal openly put it that if. Clay was 
allowed to speak in the Capitol, Kentuckians 
would be proven cowards. 

Mr. Clay did not ask for the Representatives' 
Hall ; but it was generally ceded that by tacit 
consent he should occupy it, and the door keeper, 
Mr. Grey, promised to have it open and lighted 
up. But at the appointed hour the Hall was 
closed and dark, the night was gloomy and a 
storm threatening, the gaslights of the city were 
darkened, and in the " very immense audience," 
as described by tlie Reporter of the Louisville 
Journal, none spoke above a whisper. As Mi-. 
Clay rose to speak, innumerable lights were 
brought and distributed by unknown hands 
throughout the crowd, and for more than three 
hours he was listened to amidst profound silence or 
occasional applause. The difficulty of arranging 
his references makes the report of the speech lose 
much of its unity ; but truth is considered of 
more importance than rhetorical arrangement. 

Kentuckians ! — That most profound and phil- 
osophical Historian, in my opinion, of all ages — 
Gibbon, speaks of courage and sincerity or its 
equivalent, truth, as the greatest of human vir- 
tues. The brave man relying upon his courage, 
never, questions that of another Those who 
know me, know full well I am not in the habit of 
speaking of my courage, nor have I indulged ia 



that other— what I consider a bad habit of Ken- 
tuckians in general, of speaking of their courage, 
I will, however, transgress my ordinary rule, and 
speak of it to-night. If I thought— if I had 
thought that you, whose blood has illustrated 
every battle-field from the beginning of our go 
ernment to this day, were wanting in that virtv 
and if I did not know that your illustrious ance 
tors, beginning with Boone and Kenton, down 
this day, possessed this virtue ; that I was in t 
land of the McKees, the Marshalls, the Davissc j, 
the Robinsons, the Clarkes, the Breckinridge 
the Clays, the Crittendens, and a host of oth ■; 
men that have made you illustrious among m( 
then I might question your courage: but, it is 1 
cause that I know that I am here, among such m 
and in Kentucky, that I speak here to-night. T .- 
brave are always generous— always ! and placi: .i 
implicit confidence in this great fundameni; rV: 
truth, I have never feared to go forth through iU 
this broad and glorious land of ours, relying up ■ 
the justice and magnanimity of Kentuckians. 
never asked, I never cared whether they vrt 
Democrats, Republicans, Americans or of a ^v 
other party denomination. Thank God,.g£nt;2'- 
men, this trust of mine has never been falsifi< ■ . 
Whether I stand in your State House or whetl 
I stand outside of your State House — whethei 
am surrounded by light or covered by darkne .<;., 
I feel equally safe while I am among Kentuc ri' 
aus. 

Gentlemen, there are some peculiar eircu i- 
stances attending this, my address to-night, tl.at 
call for allusions that I am not in tbe habit >^ 
making. It has been said — I know not wha^ 
the position and power and influence and tr.l 
and integrity of the party from which it cam( 
that if Cass. Clay was allowed to speak to-nij 
in the city of Frankfort, that the world woi 
believe the Kentuckians are cowards, and that 
John Brown had intimidated, or " scared " to i 
the word, Virginia, so it would go out that 1 1 
intimidated the million of such men of Kentu( 
as surround me to-night. Gentlemen, what m 
ness, what folly is this. It is because you 
brave — it is because your courage is unquestio; 4 



and unquestionable that there is a confidence 
abroad not only amon^ men, but among women 
and little children, that I will speak here to-night, 
and be not only heard but respectfully treated. 
Shame on such a sentiment as that. How would 
it do for you, whose name has become synon- 
ymous with the word courage, to hear it said that 
you go ont to silence the voice of Cass. Clay in 
death to prove that you are men. I will not 
elaborate this idea. The very women share none 
of this intimidation. I am proud to say, though 
I do not often speak of these things, the wife of 
Cass. Clay has written to him this day, not that 
she hopes I may escape alive from a scene of 
intimidating threats that have come from high 
and potent sources — no ! she is a Kentucky born 
woman, and such a thing never enters her 
thoughts ; and, she "prays God that I may most 
gloriously vindicate my principles to-night." 
You men who hear mo to-night ; the very women 
who hear this sentiment, will go away better men 
and better women for the hearing. The time 
will come when to those who shall succeed us, if 
fortune shall sutler them, it will be a proud re- 
flection that you thus vindicated your title to the 
name of courageous men. 

NO PERSONAL FEELINGS ENGAGED. 
Some gentlemen have supposed that inasmuch 
as the publication which 1 made, stated that I 
would here, in this place and at this time, respond 
to the message of Governor Magoffin, and the 
late speech of your Senator elect, Mr. Breckin- 
ridge, that I had some personal feelings against 
those distinguished gentlemen, and that some 
personal or private ends were to be subserved at 
this time by attacking these gentlemen. Nothing 
was further from my purpose. The only inaugu- 
ration that ever I attended, and I am now forty- 
nine years of age, was the inauguration of Gov. 
Magoffin. I had learned to respect him from 
what I heard of him and what I had seen of 
him. I regard him as a brave and generous 
man. So far as the distinguished Senator elect 
from Kentucky is concerned, all men who know 
me, know that amongst all the distinguished 
families of which Kentucky boasts, that I have 
always been proud of the Breckinridge name. 
I have from earliest life looked to some portions 
of them as the guides and pilots of my political 
opinions. I have been personally associated 
with them ; my family has been associated with 
them. I would not have said these things did 
not the occasion call for it, and did I not know 
that these insinuations had been made, I would 
say that of all the men whose names are now 
presented to the American people by the Democ- 
racy with regard to the next presidenc}-, that I 
would not see any one attain that high position 
sooner than John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. 

EQUAL EIGHTS. 

But, gentlemen, neither Governor Magoffin nor 
Senator Breckinridge are infallible, and, here 
to-night, humble as I may be, unhonored as I 
am by having these doors closed upon me, a 
native of Kentucky and a man that belongs to one 
of the great parties of the United States, 1 moan 
to be the peer of the gentlemen, and equal in 
every respect so far as man is e qual to man. 
God knows I do not detract from, nor do I envy 
the honors of these distinguished gentlemen, for 
whatever else can be said of them, it cannot be 
denied that they wear their honors gracefully 
and with becoming humility. 

We must recollect that in this Commonwealth 

\ ^ '•\ C^ R 1 



we stand |on a broad basis of equality, and that 
whatever other people may think, I have just as 
much right to be heard here and now as other 
men. Let my opinions be what they may, those 
opinions ought to be fairly canvassed, and if 
they are good, you should vindicate them by 
carrying them into practice, and if they be bad, 
then it is j'our duty to reject them and take those 
that are better. 

IS SINCERELY AN EMANCIPATIONIST. 

As I said in the beginning. Gibbon says of the 
two greatest virtues, sincerity is one. This, gen- 
tlemen, whatever may be my short comings vdth 
regard to courage, I believe my sincerity and 
love of truth have not been questioned, and al- 
though I am here alone, one among a million, 
diffi3ring from you, it possibly may be, I know 
that you will credit that I believe that which I 
say I believe. I do not deny that, following the 
faith of our fathers, I am an emancipationist, 
How would I commend mj'self, then, to you, if 
having made this avowal everywhere within the 
limits of the Commonwealth, I should conceal or 
deny my sentiments? He is not a dangerous 
man that goes about openly and above board, 
avowing what his sentiments are, but he is the 
dangerous man, who, having sentiments, denies 
them, and you all know and feel this truth, and 
therefore it is because you believe I have been 
true in my utterance, that I have been able to 
stand comparatively alone in the State, telling 
these things. I am, upon the subject of emanci- 
pation, just where I always was. But I do not 
now intend to discuss this subject. I do not now 
propose to enter into a debate as to whether we 
should, by gradual, and distant, and prospec- 
tive means, get clear of Slavery. That I have 
done, upon almost every stump and in every 
county of this Commonwealth, again and again. 
That is not the present issue. It cannot be de- 
nied, and you all know it, that I have always 
stood fairly and squarely upon the constitution 
and the laws, that I have ever been obedient to 
law, a law and order man. 

THE MADISON COUNTY MOBS. 

Now, gentlemen, for a few personal explana- 
tions, before I enter upon the vindication of the 
Republican party Allow me here to state what 
has been and what yet is my position in my own 
county. There are distinguished gentlemen 
here, members of the Legislature and outside of 
the Legislative body, of Madison, and they know 
that that which I say is so, is truth. I allude to 
the expulsion of the Rev. John G. Fee, of Ken- 
tucky, and some nineteen otlier citizens of the 
Commonwealth by birth and choice, from their 
homes, and their departure into exile. 

Some three years since, on the Fourth day of 
July, when Mr. Fee returned again to the State 
after a temporary absence, he took the ground of 
what may be called the radical abolition party, 
that as a citizen of the Commonwealth, he owed 
no allegiance to the constitution and laws adop- 
ted and enacted on the subject of slavery, and 
that he planted himself on the higlier law of 
natural right. Although I accorded tf) him, that 
which I now believe and still assert, that he was 
honest — that he was pure in his purpose, that he 
was actuated by the highest love of Christian 
charity, }'ot it was not the ground upon which I 
stood, as I was a constitution and law loving 
man, I argued to him that I could not and should 
no longer stiind by him, that I owed it t» myself 
and owed it to those laboring men of the country 



Ea- 



W KCt i-* 



who held no slaves, whose cause I pleaded, and 
who confided in my leadership, to say to them 
that his was an unsafe and untenable position, 
and one which no man can hold; that it would 
immediately bring them into conflict witli the 
laws of the country, and that that position, no 
matter by whom strenp:thened, could not be main- 
tained. That is what 1 told him and them. Well 
now I am no Don Qui.xote to go forward and fight 
the battles of every man who may venture an 
opinion upon the subject of slavery; and am I to 
be accused as a seditious man and denounced bj' 
others as a bully because I was willing to stand 
by those men who took and maintained tlie ground 
that I had taught them to stand upon? I put it 
to every man that hears me if it would not have 
been base in me, after I persuaded men compara- 
tively ignorant to come out and take ground 
against slaverv, if I had deserted them? Although 
I love life as much as any niaii, and have 
perhaps as much to live for as any man, I would 
die ten thousand deaths before I would be guilty 
of such base ingratitude. I say this, that where- 
ever a man, planting himself on the broad consti- 
tutional ground of our fatliers of 1770, follows 
me, I will stand by and defend him to tiic best of 
my ability, and give him such protection as I can 
when tlie laws of the country refuse to give him 
what the constitution guarantees to him as his 
right. Therefore I could not stand by Fee and 
his associates. I believe he is as pure a man as 
ever I knew, yet I did not believe his position 
was tenable, and I was not willing to take ground 
with him. I not only proclaimed this on the 
stump, but at a later day when I was asked by 
men sympathizing with him, coming from other 
portions of the United States, if I could not con- 
scieutiousiy lend him my aid and countenance in 
carr_ying on his work and enforcing his doctrines. 
I declined by letter, announcing that I could not 
stand upon the platform of Jlr. Fee; upon that 
ground we must split. He was responsible for 
his acts, and I for mine. That has been my 
whole course in connection with these parties. 

It is untrue — it is absolutely and entirely un- 
true—on the other side, that I said that these men 
ought to be expelled from the Commonwealth. 
My position was one of strict neutrality. I said 
that while I was willing to see these men remov- 
ed by law, if they violated any law. I was the 
sworn and eternal enemy of mobs, come they 
from what source they might. As soon as I 
heard that my name was connected with this tran- 
saction in that^way, that I, who had fought against 
some eight or ten mobs, had come and sanctioned 
a mob, I immediately wrote to the editors of the 
Richmond Messenger and the Cincinnati Gazette, 
utterly denying it, and stating my views. What 
was the result ? I was told eight .days after it 
was done, and that with the influence of my name, 
he of the Messenger received my letter. In eight 
days he received my letter, at a distance of about 
.an" hour's ride from my office. That was what 
Judge Field told me the day before I left. I have 
inquired with regard to the ottier letter to the 
Cincinnati Gazette, and have learned that there 
has been no such letter received in that quarter. 

FEE AND JOHN BROWN. 

What further ? Mr. Fee is stated here as sanc- 
tioning the raid of Brown upon Virginia. [A 
voice on the outskirt— "Hurra for Brown."] Let 
lis be honest! Fee is an exile; he is a native 
Kentuckian; he has, away from this, explained 
himself, and I have received a report of the 
speech at Brooklyn, and he there stated that 



while he admired the self-consecration, or in 
other words the devotion, of John Brown, he did 
not approve of his course, nor of his way of 
settleing the slavery question: in other words, he 
was opposed to insurrectien. It was his view of 
the matter that he should go to slave-holders, 
and by argument induce them, and by the force 
of divine teaching, persuade them to relinquish 
their hold upon the slaves. 

A SOKRY HOAX. 

Well, genflemen, the report reaches us of boxes 
of Sharpe's rifles having been transported tlu'ough 
the ordinary channels of commerce to Berca. Af- 
ter these men are removed, we are now told that 
this was all a hoax. All I have to say about that 
is that it was a very sorry hoax. A sorry hoax as 
far as Fee is concerned, doing him great injustice, 
imputing to him a criminal intent that lie did not 
entertain and a purpose he did not design, and, so 
far as the Commonwealth is concerned, certain!)' 
it is a sorry hoax. 

So much in connection with that subject. I ad- 
mit that a great many very respectable gentlemen 
in the county of Madison were in this affair — men 
for whose character and lives I have a profound 
respect personally, and good feeling and friend- 
ship. All that I can say is that I regret on their 
account, this transaction, but more especially do I 
regret the influence this thing must have upon the 
large class of the people of the county, who were 
receiving the benefit of the education that these 
men were bestowing. Mr. Fee has nothing to 
lose — he will go where he will be paid as a time- 
serving man, or as otjier preachers of the Gospel of 
Christ ; but the number of the uneducated, con- 
stituting two-thirds of every born child in the 
mountains around that little colony, will be the 
sufferers by his absence. 

THE NEW GOD. 

We are told also in that report that this man 
imported a new god — that the slaveholders' god 
was not good enough for him and his associates, 
and this is attributed as a reproach. I knew the 
community in and around Berea when I was a boy, 
and I say that they were of the most vicious people 
that ever I did know : a drunken, tobacco-chew- 
ing, whisky-drinking people ; debauchery and 
fighting could there be seen as plainly as the 
noon day sun. But now, how is all this changed. 
The price of land lias advanced as these gentle- 
men themselves admit, and morality reigns where 
disorder was predominant. Why, sir, they have 
invaded the great State of Kentucky. How? 
With Sharpe's rifles, pistols, and bowie knives? 
No ! but with the New Testament, the school- 
house, the church, and the saw-mill. It has even 
been objected that they were erecting a saw-mill. 
Where before the inhabitants dwelt in huts with- 
out windows and with mud floors, these men have 
introduced neat frame buildings. The children that 
before were indulging in idleness and dissipation, 
had been reformed and were going to one of the 
best schools in Madison county, and in so saying, 
I make no single exception. A certain degree of 
self respect has been inspired in the people, and 
I venture to say that now tliere is no better peo- 
ple in the State than those who surround the col- 
ony of Berea, in the county of Madison. This is 
the new god they introduced. No, sir ! no new 
god has been introduced. It is the same God 
who before the long centuries created the heavens 
and the earth, who based His Throne upon tlio 
eternal principles of justice, and draped it in the 
undying beauty of harmony, liberty and love. 



Well, gentlemen, with this personal explana- 
tion, I proceed to the main argument ; and, for the 
I)urpose of brevity, I shall group together the 
allegations made by the Governor in las message, 
and the allegations made by the Vice-President 
in his published speech. The peculiar position 
in which I am plivced will prevent me from going 
into an elaborate argument, as I had intended, and 
you will pardon me if I skip much, and perhaps 
thereby weaken the strength of my discourse. ' 

THE HIGHER LAW. 

I understand the preliminary charge to be, in 
the first place, against what the distinguished 
Senator elect chooses to style the sentiment of a 
leading Republican of the United States, none 
other than Governor Seward, the present Sena- 
tor of New York. Allow me to say, in the begin- 
ning, that I am not now, and never have been, a 
partizan of Senator Seward ; but, standing as he 
does, one of the representatives of the Empire 
State of New York, that great State in wliich 
centers not only the commerce, but, I may say, 
the political intelligence of this country; ad- 
mitted on all hands to be as able a man, if not the 
ablest man, in the Senate of the United States, I 
say I would be doing injustice were I not to vindi- 
cate him from all that which is unjustly imputed 
to him here. At other times and in other places 
that Senator is perfectly competent to vindicate 
himself, but here in Kentucky, where that vindi- 
cation, on account of the censorship of the press, 
and in part, the refusal to allow the constitutional 
freedom of speech, he will hardly else be vindi- 
cated. I imagine I shall not be considered at all 
intrusive if I answer one or two of those charges 
made by those distinguished gentlemen : 

The first denunciation that comes to us with 
regard t<i Mr. Seward is that he is a higher law 
man. Let us look at that for a moment — a higher 
law man. I intend to be veiy distinctly under- 
stood on this subject. In this time as great issues 
— issues unparalleled in their consequence in the 
world are dependent upon the principles advo- 
cated b}' parties, you should not go away with 
doubt upon your minds, and you will allow me to 
go into details as to the true meaning of this 
term. I understand, then, gentlemen, in the com- 
mon sense in which this term is used, by a higher 
law, an enactment that has the sacredness, the 
weight, and the power that belongs to no human 
law. Now are we a Christian people, and is 
there any man that claims to be one of the com- 
mon brotherhood of Christianity that will deny 
that there is an overruling Providence who gov- 
cras the universe by eternal and immutable laws 
which will prevail", the vicious or sacraligious 
attempts of man to the contrary notwitiistanding? 
There is no man who will be so regardless of the 
sentiment of Christian gocnlness as to utter any 
such idea as that. Tliat then is the "higher 
law" which he acknowledged; and, although I 
do not quote him from the book, I will state his 
position specifically : it was on the question of 
admitting the Territory on the Pacific as a Free 
State wlien he said that California ought not 
only to be free, but a home for those driven 
out from the Slave States by the competition of 
unpaid labor, and for others driven from their 
homes by the competition of capital in the Free 
States ; "but there was a " higher law " even than 
constitutions to which this new constitution should 
be conformed. I put it to every Democrat who 
hears me to-night if that is not the true doctrine, 
ff that be not so how dares President Buchanan 



to make his recommendations to Congress in th 
name of the Almighty God ? 

That, then, is the assertion. It is not an asser- 
tion that brings anarchy upon a community, but 
it is the only one principle of right and justice 
upon which the permanent good of the com- 
munity can rest. It is the only permanent se- 
curity for goods, property, reputation, lives, and 
(minion, and that was the sense in which Senator 
Reward has uttered that sentiment, and he has 
again and again said when constitutions were 
made and laws enacted, not that we should cast 
ignominy and reproach upon them, or disobey 
them, but that we should acquiesce in them, obey- 
ing them until they are changed by an intelligent 
constituency, acting through the legislative de- 
partment of the Government. That is what he 
said and there I stand by him, here and else- 
where, now and forever, and there is not a man 
here to-night that does not stand by us, acknowl- 
edge that principle, that higher law, that reliance 
upon God, if he dare speak liis honest sentiments. 

We had a great deal of it at least, in this same 
Representatives' Hall from which we are excluded 
to-night. The op])osite party found there was 
a " higher law " and what was that Divine and 
Omnipotent God? It was Slavery- 1 Slavery is 
higher than heaven and earth, and all constitu- 
tions and laws. It is found' in the Constitution, 
we are told, or it is higher than that Constitu- 
tion ; and since that time we have heard nothing 
of the "higher law" of Senator Seward. That 
thing is neutralized, as chemists say — done for, as 
common men may urge. 

THE IRKEPRESS'lBLE CONFLICT. 

Another allegation is made against that Senator' 
intended to affect the Republican organization. 
It is now alleged that he has announced in his 
Rochester speech, this much abused and cant 
phrase of a conflict, that there is a conflict be- 
tween slave labor and free labor all through this 
Government, and the conflict has been going on 
and will be going on until one or the other ut- 
terly triumphs. Tliat is the assertion. We ac- 
knowledge it — we own up. So let us examine 
it. Why, gentlemen, I understand that to be the 
dechirafrm of our fathers in 1776. I understood 
that to be the openly avowed sentiment of Wash- 
ington, Madison, and .lefferson. I understood that 
to be the declaration of the resolution in Virginia, 
for which your candidate for Speaker of the Dem- 
ocratic party, Mr. Bocock, voted some years ago. I 
understood, furthermore, that that was the decla- 
ration of the late South Carolina Legislature, and 
above all, I have it here, taken from the Louis- 
ville Courier, the leading organ of the Democ- 
racy in Kentucky, made more than ten years ago. 
You would like to read it. Then you will have 
the goodness to turn to the files of that journal, 
and see if I lie or not. (Cries of "read it.") 

[Speaker was interrupted by a heavy fall or 
rain, which forced him to retire into the rotunda o. 
of the State House.] 

I will read the extract, which I cut with my 
own scissors from the Louisville Courier, and 
by referring to the files of that paper you will 
find it in the words which I to-night quote : 

" I presume that it will not be denied that free 
lalwr and slave labor are incompatible. The 
white man is unwilling to labor by the side of 
the slave, and the slave is equally averse to la- 
boring by the aide of the white man. There ex- 



ists a mutual repugnancy, and it follows, of 
course, that the mass of the labor of Kentucky 
must be wholly the labor of the white man, or 
wholly the labor of the slave." 

What think you of that, coming from this high 
Democratic authority ? Mark the extent to which 
this gentleman carries the idea. Not only that 
there is a conflict, but he goes further. He says 
not only does the white man refuse to labor with 
the slave, but mark him well, he puts the slave 
above the Democratic white laborer of the Com- 
monwealth, and tells you the sentiment of tlie 
slave. What then is his conclusion ? Why that 
in the conflict the "nigger" is to have prece- 
dence, so that slave labor becomes entirely pre- 
dominant in the Commonwealth. What sort of 
Democratic teaching is that? In the name of 
God let us hear no more from the Democratic 
party, from Governor Magoffin, or Vice-President 
Breckinridge, of this thing about the higher law 
or of this eternal conflict between free aud slave 
labor. 

THE IGNORED EXPLANATIONS. 

But what did Governor Seward say? With 
that characteristic injustice wliich pervades too 
many of the Democratic journals, all the essen- 
tial and philosophic qualifications of that ex- 
pression have been withheld from the free white 
laborers of the South. What says Governor Sew- 
ard ? Governor Seward is a long-headed man. 
It is not denied that, whatsoever he may be, he 
knows what he is about. I heard one of the most 
distinguished jurists of the Commonwealth of 
Kentucky say that he had the clearest and most 
philosophic head of any man in the Union ; and 
what does this clear-headed man say ? Does he 
leave it capable of perversion ? Does he say that 
because slave labor and free labor are incompat- 
ible that the Republican party are going to en- 
slave the white men of the South, or to interfere 
with the slavery now existing in tlie South ? No, 
sir ! I deny that. I will state substantially what 
he dojs say. He says, and this is the important 
item which is left out by the Demorcatic press, 
that although this philosophical conclusion is go- 
ing on, whether it is the work of this century or 
of the next, or of ten centuries, or of ten thou- 
sand centuries, he does not undertake to deter- 
mine, nor can any other man ; but he does say 
that it will take" place ; not by violence, not by 
John Brown raids, or conflicts and bloodshed, but 
peaceably by the amendment of the constitutions 
and laws of the several Southern States them- 
S3lves. 

Is there a Democrat here unwilling to indorse 
that method of settling the conflict which Demo- 
cratic papers assert exists ? Suppose the great 
people ot the Commonwealth of Kentucky choose 
to throw up the barbarian relic, whc shall object? 
What says your Democratic authority? Have 
you not the right to do it? Is not that the idea ? 
If it is not, here, then is a "higher law "—the 
law of Slavery, higher than that of all Demo- 
cratic principles, that is, the same Divine right 
against which we f< ught in the British king, by 
which he claimed to rule over us without our con- 
sent. Whatever it be, be it even the law of God, 
that is certainly not Democracy : it is despotism ; 
it is the same old Divine right of kings, and noth- 
ing else, disguise it as you may. So said Gov- 
ernor Seward. So say" I, and so says tie Demo- 
cratic party. The R publican party in the States 
of the Union say that it is none of their business — 
that if South Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia 
choose to own slaves by voluntary consent, by the 



ascertained will of the majority of the people, let 
them hold on to the institution to all eternity, but, 
if the people of South Carolina, Georgia, or Ken- 
tucky, in their omnipotent power, as the sovereigns 
of their own country, choose to abolish it in a 
way that seems to them good, it is none of our 
business; in God's name, let them do it. That 
is the doctrine I have always avowed in this 
Commonwealth, that inasmuch as I was a free 
born white citizen of Kentucky, for the freedom 
of which mv fathers stood, my sentiments were 
for the expulsion of this system from our Com- 
monwealth : but further than that I did not claim 
to go. If we choose to abolish or maintain slav- 
ery, it is our business. If Virginia, South Caro- 
olina, or Missouri chooses to abolish it, it is their 
business, and it is an officious intermeddling that 
tries to dictate to Kentucky, and say if I be al- 
lowed to exercise my constitutional rights, these 
people are cowards. " Inasmuch as I leave them 
free to claim their State sr.vereignty and powers, 
I claim to exercise my constitutional rights as a 
citizen within the limits of my own jurisdiction. 

That is the doctrine of the Repubican party. So 
far as the southern members of that party are con- 
cerned, they say that it is our business and none of 
theirs ; but so "far as the National Government is 
concerned it was established, as they believe, upon 
the basis of equal rights, and they say tliat into the 
free territories of the Union slavery shall not go. 
That is the ground— the distinctive ground of the 
Republican party ; the only ground at issue be- 
tween the great parties of the United States. 

But, as I said before, I do not stand here to 
vindicate Governor Seward, especially ; onlyso 
far as allegations have been made against him, 
and through him have been intended to act upon 
and against the Republican party, have I alluded 
to this matter at all. 

SEWARD AND JOHN BROWN. 

While upon this subject let us notice the con- 
nection attempted to be made between tlie Repub- 
lican organization as concerned with the raid of 
John Brown upon Virginia ; especially, perhaps, 
as it applies to this distinguished Senator from 
New York. Preliminary to this, aliow me to 
state that upon the subject of slavery there are 
three distinct parties in the United States. One 
that calls itself par excellence the Abolition party. 
That began under William Lloj'd Garrison, and it 
is still kept up, partly by himself, and partly by a 
greater than he, this great bug-a-boo, Wendell 
Phillips. What are tlie doctrines of that party? 
It is fairly and squarely acknowledged by tliera 
that the Constitution is a slavery document, inas- 
much as it binds all the millions of the free 
States, in case of a servile insurrection in the 
Southern States, to stand by and defend the rights 
of the master against th"e slave. They come 
squarely and frankly to the mark, and say that 
inasmuch as from tlioir education and the teach- 
ings of their consciences they are unwilling to 
carry out that part of the compact, tliat they go 
for a dissolution of the Union; let the slave 
States goto themselves, and let us go to ourselves. 
If the Southern Stiites choose to hold slaves let 
them do it, but inasmuch as we choose not to 
hold slaves we will not, and we will not bear the 
responsibility of their acts. Let us depart in 
peace, the one from the other. They are, how- 
ever, non-resistants. But let me say, while 
speaking of Phillips, he is the greatest man that 
I ever listened to— I speak of his intellect. One- 
idea'd as he has been called, there is a power and 
versatility and universality in him that is pos- 



sessed by no orator livinn: or dead. That is his 
opinion. He is a non-resistant. He stands re- 
sponsible for his own opinions to man and to God. 
It is not for me to defend him here. 

THE RADICAL ABOLITIONISTS. 

Next comes the radical abolition party. They 
say that the idea of dissolving the Union is too 
far removed, they cannot wait for this moral in- 
fluence to exert itself. By tlie way I should men- 
tion that the Garrison and Phillips party does not 
vote. They think if they vote under the Consti- 
tution and hold office under it, they would be 
bound to take the oath of allegiance, and inas- 
much as they cannot do that, they do not vote or 
hold office ; but not so with the radical abolition- 
ists ; they hold that they have a right not only to 
vote but to abolish Slavery in the States. They 
too have a " higher law," and say that inasmuch 
as slaveholders have proclaimed that Slavery is 
a higher law they make issue, and say that liber- 
ty is above all constitutions and laws, and that 
the slave is allowed entirely the use of his own 
discretion as to where and how he may liberate 
himself, if liberation is within his reach. To 
that party belonged John Brown. To that party 
belonged Cook, and to that paity belonged every 
man decidedly and ascertained ly implicated in 
that raid. Not one belonged to the Republican 
organization. No, Sire. After all attempts in 
every quarter to make capital out of the affiiir 
there has not been proved to be one single Repub- 
lican standing in alliance with Seward and my- 
self that they have been able to implicate re- 
motely or directly in this raid of John Brown. 

I rejoice that those resolutions of investigation 
have been passed in the Senate of the United 
States, that they may call for me, that they may 
call for Gov. Seward, that they may call on any 
other Republican, North and South, and bring 
them before the proper committee of the Senate of 
the United States, and there make them fairly and 
fully disclose all that they know upon the sub- 
ject. I tell you, now, it will result in our vindi- 
cation, and in the mortification of those who have 
attempted to do Seward this signal injustice. 

HANG-DOG TESTIMONY. 

What is the testimony upon which your papers, 
and the papers of Madison, have arraigned be- 
fore the committee these men. Why, that a cer- 
tain infamous English renegade, one Forbes — 
who avowedly fought for pay in Kansas, and 
whose pay ceased as the contest there ceased ; 
who fought for money in that territory where your 
children and my children met to seek homes, 
when driven out bj- the strong competition of 
unpaid wages — publishes and declares that he 
intimated in a conversation with Mr. Seward that 
sucli a raid was going on ; as he afterwards said 
he did not understand it to be anything but a raid 
to collect together and carry out slaves from the 
slave States by a kind of stampede. What does 
he say that Ciov. Seward said ? " Sir, I will 
have nothing to do with any such project. You 
have no business to talk U) me, a Senator of the 
United States, upon any such subject." But 
what does Mr. Seward say of all this when he 
heard of it on his distant travel ? Said he, I saw 
a man by the name of Forbes, but I utterly deny, 
upon tlie honor of a man, that I ever had any 
intimation directly or indirectly touching ujwn 
any such raid. I put it to every honest man, to 
Mr. Magoffin, to Mr. Breckinridge and all their 
suppoi'ters, is there a single one of you, on such 
testimony as this by an infamous renegade who 



deserted his comrades in arms, who would put to 
death the meanest sheep-killing dog ? I will 
speak for you ! — I know you would not — not one 
of you would. Yet this is to implicate Gov. 
Seward, and through him to cast a slur upon the 
great Republican party of these United States. 
No, gentlemen, we may go down, but I tell you 
here, now, 1 tell all these gentlemen we will never 
go down upon such testimony as that. There- 
fore I reiterate, we challenge you to the disclo- 
sure. We boldly hurl back the imputation as 
untrue, whatever ma_y be its intent and purpose, 
and we defy you to the testimony, and appeal to 
the country. That is what we do. 

ABOUT INSURRECTION, 

While upon this subject, allow me to say a 
word upon the subject of insurrections. I believe 
I have made more speeches in vindication of the 
Republican party than any man in the United 
States, north or south. I believe, from my cor- 
respondence with individuals, associations, and 
other combinations of that party, I am as inti- 
mately acquainted with the purposes of that party 
as any man in Amei'ica, and I will tell you what 
I believe those purposes now to be, according to 
my understanding, and their views with regard 
to this whole subject of the liberation of slaves 
by force, and servile insurrection. 

We now and always have regarded the poor 
African as of an inferior race, and altliough we 
do not pretend to divine the inscrutable designs 
of Deity, although we cannot say what may be 
the design of the great "I am;" whether they 
shall ascend in the scale of h\imanity, and we go 
down, or they go up still higher, we leave these 
questions entirely to the philosophical speculator, 
saying that is not a subject of political action at 
all ; but so far as practicability is concerned, we 
hold that the black man is now of an inferior race, 
and although the poet says " that the worm feels 
a pang as great as when a giant dies," yet we 
believe that is all poetry, and not truth. The life 
of man and of woman is desirable as it is ele- 
vated and removed from the condition of the beast 
of the field that perisheth. Therefore it is, that 
when Great Britain held her supremacy over the 
immense millions of India, attempting by the 
despotic power of force to rule it by no amalga- 
mation of interests, taking it under a common 
protection and into a common glory those untold 
millions of Eastern men, but ruling by force ; 
and when upon the abstract proposition, every 
man was bound to confess that the right was on 
the side of the Indians, yet my sympathies vi-ere 
on the side of our common ancestors, and I im- 
agine, that outside of a few fanatics, that there 
were no men among these thirty millions of people 
that did not symi)athize with the British. The 
white race as against the red and colored races of 
India, although, as I saj-, the right was on the 
side of the East Indians. Why? Because there 
was this development of our race, making them 
little less than godlike and divine, and because 
more especially these men had proved by bru- 
tality, when a temporary success crowned their 
efforts, that they were unfit for liberty. The man 
who dares not to be generous, is not fit to rule or 
to be free, and we all rejoiced when we under- 
stood that the old British lion had risen triumph- 
ant over the Juggernautish flags of the people. 

But we come down a page lower in history and 
sec Hungary when it struggled against a superior 
power, for that independence wliich Austria at- 
tempted to take away from them. When she 
fought for her God-given and national rights of 



independence, all this was changed. Why ? Be- 
cause, by the liberation of their slaves they 
showed that they perceived a great principle, and 
in this acknowledgment of a great principle, they 
based themselves indissolubly upon the sympathy 
of all the unbiased intellect of our wide world 
humanity. We all wanted Hungary to triumph. 
We all desired her independence. So, in regard 
to the black race, I say here to-night that which 
I have said as many as ten or twelve years ago, 
that if that issue arose, which God forbid it 
should come, when the African slave and the 
superior race should take up arms to vindicate 
their liberty, which can be in some States done 
but by the abolishment of the white race, I am on 
the side of my own race. The solution of this 
problem is a fraternal one. These are the senti- 
ments which I have always avowed, therefore I 
cast back the infamous calumny that there is in 
my breast any sentiment like that which would 
sanction the making of a raid upon the South. 
Further, I believe this to be the sentiment, so far 
as I know them, of the members of the great Re- 
publican party of the States. 

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 
Well now, gentlemen, the great question is per- 
tinently asked. Why did a large portion of the 
Republican party sympathise with John Brown 
upon his death ? I care not who the truth may 
cut, whether it be friend or foe, I stand here 
avowing, and if I know myself, as God is my 
helper, I intend to speak candidly and frankly 
and above board, and I tell you why, men of Ken- 
tucky, there was this sympathy for John Brown. 
Your resolutions here to-day, as emanating from 
the Democratic State Convention tell us that the 
Republican party is responsible for the John 
Brown raid. These are the resolutions as they 
will go out in this commonwealth, this is 
the meaning of the resolutions as they will 
go to the people of Kentucky, and as we 
read to the same purport in the Message of Gov. 
Magoffin, and in the speech of the Vice President. 
They draw an inference, they have now abandon- 
ed'; the charge direct, and now they have dra\yn 
the inference that our principles led to that raid, 
and therefore we are responsible. Well, now 
gentlemen, if the responsibility rests upon prin- 
ciple, it goes further back than Seward, Clay, or 
any other Republican. Where does it go? To 
the year 1776, when your fathers and my fathers 
declared themselves free and independent of the 
British crown, and when they further declared 
that " all men are created free and equal, and are 
endowed with certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happpi- 
ness." There rests the responsibility according 
to your resolutions, not upon us, but upon that 
bant of patriots. They were those who made 
the avowals, and we are those that stand by the 
faith once transmitted to the saints. When you 
accuse me and all of us, you accuse them, and 
until you are ready to accuse them, and are ready 
to go with John C. Calhoun in the Senate of the 
United States, and say that the Declaration of 
Independence is all a lie. I demur to your alle- 
gation. I say that you are estopped from alleg- 
ing that against us. You ought not to strike at 
the inferior while the superior workers for the 
blessings of life and liberty remain untouched— 
these glorious men who preceded us, and gave 
us this Constiution. 

TDE DE.MOCKATIC PABTY RESPONSIBLE. 

Now I will tell you where the responsibility 
came from. It came from this same Democratic 



party. Now I make that allegation, but I am 
not going to base it upon speculation. I am not 
putting the charge upon inferences drawn by 
Cass. Clay, that I make the charge direct; but if 
I don't produce the evidence and prove that, I 
say, if you give me the opportunity, let me here- 
after stand infamous before men. 

In the first place, what says the great Ameri- 
can party of Kentucky, that party which, with 
all its faults, still embodies so many great truths, 
and which, amid all its short comings from the 
higher standard that we have marked out for our- 
selves, still has some regard for truth and justice ! 
What does the representative of that party say, 
your late President, and the candidate of that 
party for the Presidency, what does he say ? the 
man that you Americans voted for; the man that 
you have been in the habit of holding upas a 
true patriot and conservative man— what did he 
say to the late Union meeting, what did Millard 
Fillmore say upon that subject? Why said he: 
Gentlemen, I am getting old, I have retired from 
political life; my work is done, good or bad; I 
regret that I was under the necessity of signing 
the bill called the Fugitive Slave Law, but I felt 
it to be my duty, and howevermuch 1 may regret 
it, yet a firm regard to the Constitution and laws 
of the country compelled me to sign that bill. 
And all this trouble, says Mr. Fillmore, " the la- 
mentable tragedy at Harper's Ferry is clearly 
traceable to this unfortunate controversy about 
slavery in Kansas." Where docs he say the 
responsibility lies ? It lies upon that Democratic 
measure that repealed the Missouri Compromise 
of 1820. There is the cause of it. Still, are ^ve 
going to take Mr. Fillmore's word for it? High 
authority as he may be, we do not intend to take 
it; but we will review for a very few moments the 
history of the country in connection with that 
matter, and see if it does not bring the responsi- 
bility upon that party, as affirmed by Mr. Fill- 
more, and seconded by myself and the Republican 
party. 

Well, now, gentlemen, there is a man lately 
dead, a man whose name I have the honor to 
bear, and with great humility I say it. I stand 
here to-night to defend his principles. Henry Clay 
is admitted to be the founder, and entitled to all the 
honor of it, of that compromise of 1820. As I 
passed down yesterday from my home and my 
agricultural pursuits, by the city of Lexington, I 
saw a huge pile of massive stone raised to the 
memory of Henry Clay. Gentlemen, are you 
going to re-enact the folly and madness that the 
Savior denounced in the ancient Jews ? Are 
you going to ornament and whitewash the out- 
ward sepulcher, while inwardly there is nothing 
but courruption ? Do you intend to build eternal 
monuments of brass to the memory of Henry 
Clay, while you trample under foot the men who 
have the courage to stand up and defend his prin- 
ciples ? Will you garnish the tomb, while the im- 
m irtal spirit sliall be ignored in his representatives? 
If yon intend to deny these principles, go and 
level that monument" to the ground, return that 
marble to the quarry, and then rush upon us and 
hide them in our blood, but not till then. He is 
the author of that compromise, and what is it? 
That north of 3G degrees 30 minutes African 
slavery shall never extend, leaving it entirely aa 
a matter of inference whether south of that line 
or net it shall extend. That is the Missouri Com- 
promise. Now, while I admit that there is no 
power in Congress to make strictly what may be 
called a compromise, because it has an unlimited 
and sovereign power bounded only by the Consti- 



tution itself, so that no one Congress shall say 
what a succeeding Congress shall or shall not 
do, yet the language has been used ; it was a com- 
pact, and it was elevated and placed alongside 
the Constitution itself. An honest registrar of 
the event states that after it passed so great was 
the sanctity of that measure that it became as a 
part of the Constitution itself, the palladura of 
our liberty, and he was afraid if ever it should 
go down, the Constitution would go down with it. 
It existed to the year 1 854. 

ALLEGATIONS ANSWERED. 

Gentlemen, I utterly deny the allegations that I 
hear made in this Hall of Representatives, that 
the compromise of 1820 was repealed, or in- 
tended to be repealed, by the compromisesof 1850. 
and upon this point I appeal to the country. No 
wonder that it is dark to-night — no wonder that 
they have put out the lights. Read the speeches 
of that day. Why Mr. Clay was alive in 1850. 
Mr. Clay was in the Congress of the United 
States — he took part in tlie debates of 1850, and 
I am at a loss to find where the statement was 
made. In 1854 was the very first time wo were 
told that it was at all claimed that there was an in- 
tention immediate or remote, direct or reflective, to 
affect that compromise of 1820 by that of 1850. 
How will I prove that? I prove'it to you by the 
admission of Stephen A. Douglass himself. Yes, 
sirs, that man who is held up here in Kentucky, 
that by a certain kind of hocus pocus is to be 
foisted upon you and the Charleston Convention, 
t<2lls us in his first Senate report before the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was offered, that no ruth- 
less hand shall dare to rise against that compro- 
mise. Go to the Congressional Globe. I know it 
is now on record. I defy the Democratic party or 
anybody to deny that when they referred to the 
compromise of 1820, that it was to be preserved 
for years after. It is said it was to be repealed. 
Are "you not ashamed of yourselves ? If you are 
not you should be now to venture such an asser- 
tion as that. 

It is history, gentlemen. You may tear me 
down from this stand ; you may consecrate the 
principles which I here to-night defend, with my 
blood , if you please ; but there will stand the 
truth, and that truth says that your assertion is 
untrue, and that every Democrat knows it to be 
untrue, that the compromise of 1820 was repealed 
by the compromise of 1850. It is not true 1 And 
tliatit is not true has been avowed by the leading 
man that brought in and carrried that bill, and 
who based his claim for the Presidency upon his 
devotion to the South. Thank God for pen, ink, 
and paper, sometimes used in this Commonwealth 
and others, although it is very anti -democratic 
to use them, it seems. 

THE GAME OF GRAB. 

Let us get along a little further. "Why did 
they want to repeal the Compromise of 1820? 
What is the matter, you Democrats of the ITnited 
States ? You have "had the power, you say, all 
the time or almost all the time from the founda- 
tion of the government to the present day. You 
have had possession of the government since its 
foundation, and where is the necessity now of re- 
pealing this Compromise ? Why, although you 
had the influence of the government, both in its 
foreign and domestic policy, under pretence of 
subserving the rights of the people, you have 
used them to maintain the rights of slavery, and 
after a race of nearly three-quarters of a century, 
you are entirely beliiud. The North has growu 



in population and material, and intellectual de 
velopment far beyond your growth — " the sceptre 
is about to depart from Judea ;" and what now ? 
Why we must repeal the Missouri Compromise, 
and take the start upon the progressive area of 
freedom, and check this power of conflict that the 
Louisville Courier and Gov. Seward speak of, 
and thus we may maintain our supremacy. That 
was it! Why, although you have divided the 
territory between the North and the South, that 
territory, j'ou say, was purchased by the common 
blood and treasure, and therefore you have a right 
to go into it and carry your slaves, when you do 
not allow the man who goes there from Ohio to 
carry them there. You have passed your laws 
prohibiting the African slave trade ; you monop- 
olize the carrying of slaves among yourselves. 

Although you divide that territory ceded to 
this government, and make out of it Louisiana, 
Arkansas and Missouri — three slave States— and 
when the North comes to take possession of her 
portion of the bargain, consisting of all the terri- 
tory north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, 
you say, " No, gentlemen ; that game is out, we 
must have a new deal." [Laughter.] Well, now 
my honest friend, what do you mean by a new 
deal ? Are you going to put up stakes and begin 
anew ? Are you going to put up Louisiana, 
Arkansas and Missouri, and see in the struggle 
whether freedom or slavery is the stronger? 
" Oh, no ! nothing of that kind ; we hold all we 
have got, and we intend to play the game of 
snatch and get all we can," [Laughter.] 

DOUGLAS' DREAM. 

Come on again then ! Mr. Douglas, for the 
purpose of gaining political power, to the loss of 
his constituents and for the purpose of maintain- 
ing the interests of slavery and slaveholders, 
against the great voting population of the country 
both North and South, and to make slavery pre- 
dominant, tells us that the Missouri Compromise 
of 1820 is unconstitutional. This man who a few 
days before had come into the Senate of the 
United States, admitting that this compromise 
was sacred and must not be touched, some two or 
three days after had a dream, and the result is 
that he finds out he had been mistaken, that our 
fathers were mistaken; that the action taken in 
1788 was a mistake; that the action for the non-ex- 
tension of slavery which was re-enacted under the 
constitution in 1789, and carried out under every 
President from Washington to Monroe, in having 
declared that they had a right to restrain the 
spread of slavery, was a mistake. He suddenly 
found out that our fathers did not know anything 
about the matter ; their action was unconstitu- 
tional, it was unconstitutional to pass this great 
measure, and, therefore, the Democratic party re- 
pealed it, and Douglas helped them to do it. 

Well, what did the Northern men do? What 
did the Republican party do ? Why, they said, 
gentlemen it is a lamentable thing that the decla- 
ration of the Constitution itself, gives the power 
expressly to Congress to regulate the Terri- 
tories—that is the word, "to regulate " the Terri- 
tories—making no limitation, but giving absolute 
power, and yet you deny the constitutionality of 
action under" it. " As I said before, the very first 
action under the Constitution in 1789, was an ex- 
ercise of that power to "make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory," and 
following down as long as the Presidents that 
were alive at the signing of the Constitution, 
lived, and coming to our own times as late as 
when Oregon was formed into a Territory, to a 



few days ago, this action has been deemed con- 
stitutional, when all at once these measures were 
found out to be based upon a fallacy, and it was 
discovered that we had no power to carry them 
out. What did we do? Because we loved the 
Union ; because we, North and South, had fought 
the common battles of the country, and joined in 
the love of a common liberty, standing shoulder 
to shoulder, we will try the thing once more ; we 
believe free labor is competent to sustain itself : 
we will go into the Territory, apply the test, and 
see whether or not it shall be Free or Slave. 

DEMOCRACY AS IT WAS. 

Gentlemen, let me read a few Democratic 

Flatforms to show how this thingwent along, 
will read you the Democratic platform of 
1853, two years before the passage of the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska bill, so far as it touches upon the 
subject of Slavery: 

"That Congress has no power under the 
Constitution, to interfere with or control the 
domestic institutions of the several States, 
and that such States arc the sole and proper 
judges of everything appertaining to their own 
affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; 
that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, 
made to induce Congress to interfere with the 
questions of Slavery, or to take incipient 
steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead 
to the most alarming and dangerous conse- 
quences." 

What say you to that, Democrats? Although 
you declared in black and white that it was 
dangerous to interfere with the subject of 
slavery, what have you done? Did you not 
say it was dangerous to interfere? Answer 
me that, and let me go on! You are silent. You 
are condemned out of your own mouths. I 
proceed : 

"And that all such efforts have an inevitable 
tendency to diminish the happiness of the 
people and endanger the stability and perma- 
nency of the Union." 

You condemn yourselves again. 

"And ought not to be countenanced by any 
friend of our political institutions." 

"Kesolved, That the foregoing proposition 
covers and was intended to embrace the 
"WHOLE SUBJECT of slavery agitation in Con- 
gress." 

Mark that the words "the whole subject" 
are in small cajjs in their reported resolutions. 

"And therefore the Democratic party of the 
Union, standing upon their national platform, 
will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution 
of the acts known as the compromise measures 
settled by the last Congress — the act for re- 
claiming of fugitives trom service or labor in- 
cluded, which act being designed to carry out 
the express provision of the Constitution can. 
not be repealed or so changed as to dettroy or 
impair its efficiency." 

"Resolved, That' the Democratic party will 
resist all attempts at renewing in Congress or 
out of it, the agitation of the slavery question 
under whatever shape or color the attempt 
may be made." 

These were the declarations and avowals of 
the Democratic party in 18.52. Now what do 
they do in 18.54? Why, they go under the 
leadership of Stephen A'Douglas, when he had 
made a report saying that the law of 1820 was 
sacredly conceived in the Compromise of 1850, 
and repeal the Missouri Compromise. Now, 
I believe, they stand condemned by their owq 



language and by their own acts, and I have 
here accomplished what I proposed to do. 

THE DEMOCKACT SELF-CONDEMNED. 

What was the result of all this? The result 
was that in obedience to the declaration that 
the people were to be fairly left to choose for 
themselves between liberty and slavery, they 
adopted another platform. Let me come to 
that. I will tell you what they did in 1856, in 
that year the Cincinnati platiorm was adopt- 
ed. 

In consequence of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, the northern people interceded 
to get their own territory upon the avowal 
made m the Kansas-Nebraska bill, that the 
people were to "be left free to'form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." But notwithstanding that avowal it 
had made, they immediately, as the report of 
the United States Congress showed you, be- 
fore a single Free Soiler or Republican had set 
his foot into the new territory, commenced on 
the border of Missouri, the organization of the 
"blue lodges," to invade Kansas, with the 
avowed design — peaceably if you could, and 
forcibly if you must— to have that land for a 
slave State, and "damn the Abolitionists, they 
would shoot them down as squirrels," as I 
heard a leading Democrat express himself in 
Lexington while that conflict was going on. 
They passed these resolutions in 1856, and_ I 
want you to pay a strict attention to these, in 
comparison with the other avowals: 

'■Resolved, That we reiterate with renewed 
energy of purpose, the well considered decla- 
rations of former Conventions upon the sec- 
tional issue of Domestic Slavery, and concern- 
ing the reserved rights of the States" — 

That alludes to the former Democratic 'plat- 
form of 1852, fouryears before. It goes on: 

"1. That Congress has no power under the 
Constitution, to interfere with or control the 
domestic institutions of the several States, 
and that all such States are the sole and proper 
judges of everything appertaining to their 
own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitu- 
tion; that all eftorts of the abolitionists or 
others, made to induce Congress to interfere 
with questions of slavery, or take incipient 
steps in relation thereto"— the very thing 
they have been doing to-day, besides which 
wc have heard them denouncing every man 
that does not come up to their standard, and 
calling eyeryman that stands on the "Squat- 
ter Sovereignty" platform outside of the Dem- 
ocratic party, — "are calculated to lead to the 
most alarming and dangerous consequences; 
and that all such efforts have an inevitable 
tendency to diminish the happiness of the peo- 
ple and endanger the stability and permanen- 
cy of the Union, and ought not to be counte- 
nanced by any friend of our political institu- 
tions." 

2. That the foregoing proposition covers, 
and was intended to embrace, the whole sub- 
ject of slavery agitation in Congress : and, 
therefore, the Democratic party of the Union, 
standing on this national platfoim, will abide 
by and adhere to a faithful execution of the 
acts known as the Compromise Measures, set- 
tled by the Congress of 1850; "the act for re- 
claiming fugitives from service or labor," in- 
cluded, which act being designed to carry out 
an express provision of the Constitution, can 



10 



not with fidelity thereto be repealed, or so 
chaiii^ed as to destroy or impair its efficiency. 

3. That the Democratic party will resist all 
attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of 
it, the agitation of the slavery question, under 
whatever shape or color the attempt may be 
made." 

Oh yes ! Will resist. That is the Democratic 
doctrine in 1856 in Cincinnati — did you allude 
to it to-day? Yes, you voted the doctrine 
down, and yet here it is "that the Democratic 
party will resist all attempts at renewing, in 
Congress or out of it, the agitation of the 
slavery question, under whatever shape or 
color the attempt may be made." What do 
you say to that? There is the Cincinnati plat- 
form ivhich you eschewed to-day. You .de- 
nounced as treasonable any attempt to renew 
that agitation, under any shape whatever. Let 
me, however, turn to another clause. 

4. "That by the uniform application of this 
Democratic principle to the organization of 
Territories, and to the admisb-ion of new 
States, with or without domestic slavery, as 
they may elect; the equal rights of all the 
Stales will be preserved intact; the original 
compacts of the Cons itution maintained invio- 
late; and the perpetuity and expansion of the 
Union insured to its utmost capacity of em- 
bracing, in peace and harmony, every future 
American State that may be constituted or an- 
nexed, with a republican form of govern- 
ment." 

But vou omit: 

5. ''Resolved, That claim of fellowship with, 
and desiiiug the co-operation of all who re- 
gard the preservation of the Union under the 
Constitution as the paramount issues, and re- 
pudiating all sectional parties and platforms 
concerning domestic Slavery, which seek to 
embroil tiie States, and incite to treason and 
armed resistance to law in the Territories, and 
whose avowed purposes, if consummated, must 
end in civil war and dissolution — the Ameri- 
can Democracy recognize and adopt the prin- 
ciples contained in the organic laws establish- 
ing Kansas and Nebraslca Territories, as em- 
bodying the only sound and safe solution of 
the "Slavery question," upoM which the great 
national idea of the people of this whole coun- 
try can repose in its determined conservatism 
of the Union — Non-intervention by Congress 
in Sta e and Territory, or in the District of 
Columl)ia." 

Oh! Mr. Graves, where are your resolutions? 
There, gentlemen, is your declaration, and to 
it you would not even allude to-day, and under 
the allectation of renewing the old Democratic 
platform of 1856, you entirely overlooked and 
ignore that clause which bound you not di- 
rectly or indirectly to interfere wiili Slavery, 
in State or Territorv. What have you declar- 
ed to-day? That Mr. Douglas, if not willing 
to go along with you, is outside the Demo- 
cratic party; that he is guilty of treason. That 
may be all right; they' say that a fool never 
changes Ills opinion, and that a wise man does, 
but you ought to tell it out when you make 
Buch a charge as that. 

THE UNMADE ISSUE. 

Well, now, gentlemen, I am going to give 
you a clause, that if they had adopted to-day, 
it would have put the thing so plain, that it 
you gave us Douglas, we would catch you, if 
you gave us Toombs we would catch you, 
and if you offered Breckinridge we would 



catch you. You did not intend the Demo- 
cratic party to know there was such a clause. 
As a man up our way, a preacher, a man of 
great good sense but little or no education, 
would say, when reading the Bible. Well 
brethren, that is one of— if you please this is 
—this is a bad place and we will skip it. The 
Democratic party to-day found it Avas a hard 
place and skipped it [applause] so that it is no 
wonder they did not want me to go into that 
same hall and that the lights were out and it 
was all dark. Here is what they did. The 
Republican nor Abolition party, nor the old 
Whig party; nor the American party, nor the 
Deniocratic party have ever m de an issue up- 
on the resolution passed to-day, and which 
was in the platform of 1&56, it is simply as to 
the power of a people when they become a 
State. It Is a self-evident truth that they In- 
tend you to go home with it, with the thought 
that you bagired the game, but you will find 
that the lion^has gone and you have put the 
asses skin into your pouch. 

"Resolved, That we recognize the right of 
the people of the Territories", including Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, acting. through the legally 
and fairly-expressed will of a majority of ac- 
tual residents, and whenever the number of 
their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Consti- 
tution, with or without domestic Slavery, and 
be admitted into the Union upon terms of 
perfect equality with the other States." 

Lord how frank that is! "with or without 
domestic Slavery, and be ad < itted into the 
Union upon terms of perfect equality with the 
other States." Whoever denied that? I chal- 
lenge Mr. Silvertooth, I challenge Oscar Tur- 
ner, or even Mr. Speaker Merriweather to 
point me out a single resolution from the 
foundation of our government to this day, in 
any portion of the United States where such 
has been denied. If there is such, my reading 
has been of no account. 

THE KANSAS NEBKASKA BILL. 

Take the case now. I have read the plat- 
forms and shown that they are inconsistent. 
But let me tell you what was the clause in the 
Kansas Nebraska bill which they affirmed 
again and again. It states that the Democratic 
party determined "neither to legislate slavery 
into those Territories"— oh, no! of course not 
—"nor to exclude it therefrom;"— what are you 
to do, then?— "but to leave the people perfect- 
ly free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
stitutions in their owii way, suhjeet only to the 
Constitution of the United States." Now, 
what do you think of that? Did not intend to 
legislate slavery into Kansas, nor to exclude 
it; hut did intend to "leave the people perfect- 
ly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions iu their own way." Is that your 
doctrine to-day? Editor of the Ycoiiiau, are 
you going to publish it that way to-day, that 
the object of the Nebraska bill was intended 
to leave the people perfectly free to regulate 
their own domestic institutions in their own 
way? You say to-day in the resolutions you 
have adopted, th t the people shall not do any 
such thing, and if Douglas goes for any such 
doctrine, we will see him damned if he re- 
mains iu the Democratic party; and Mr. Silver- 
tooth declares he Is already out of the pale of 
the Democratic church. [A voice— "The 
whole Democratic party is not responsible 
for him."] Of course not! God forbid they 
should be. [Laughter and applause.] The 



11 



great mass of the Republican party is of the 
Democratic party, but they are of the good 
old American gold with the stamp of '76, not 
the bogus Democratic stamp of 1854 and 1856. 
They are with us now, and will be with us 
hereafter, and therefore I stand here and the 
lights are put out. The darkness will not keep 
you, however, from knowinir that they are 
incompetent to administer the government 
that the whole party is responsible for. 

THE SNAKE AND ITS SKIN. 

Let us trace the consequences; like the snake 
yearly they shed their skin, but they never go 
back into the old one; beautiful it is at first, 
but it immediatelj' returns to dust and ashes. 
Let us look at the consequences. Here was 
the formation of the " blue lodges " in Mo., 
according to the Congressional report (remem- 
ber I don't iutend to give any statement upon 
my own say so; I appeal to history to substan- 
tiate all I say). You march under your Mis- 
souri hordes so formed into the territory of 
Ransas, and although it is well known, and as 
history has proven,"that the Republican party 
was in a clear majority, by force of arms you 
took down the judges'of election that were ap- 
pointed legally. They were taken by force, 
the Missouri forces going out with banners 
flying and with colors displayed, and the ques- 
tion was asked not "are you a judge according 
to the Constitution and the laws ?" Not " are 
you a judge of the election carrying out the 
declaration of the Cincinnati platforms of 1852 
and 1856, that the people should determine 
upon their domestic institutions in their own 
way?" But, "are you sound on the goose?" 
That was what they asked them, in other 
words, "are you for Slavery?" Not " are you 
for the constitution and the laws, and for 
the support of Republican institutions and 
principles as our fothers handed them down to 
us?" No! but "are you right on the goose?" 
and if a man did not answer that way that 
pleased them, thej- caught him by the collar 
and ejected him; and many who upheld the 
Constitutional right of election were com- 
pelled to fly for "their lives, and many were 
wounded and killed. Where then stood the 
Democratic press of the United States? Aid- 
ing and abetting all this treason. The free- 
soil citizen from the State of Kentucky, as well 
as he from the free States, who had seen by ac- 
tual experiment the glorious benefits of free in- 
stitutions, and others who had seen the woe of 
slavery, and who found that the pledges of the 
Democratic party had been kept to the word 
and violated in fact, late in the day sent to 
their homes both in Kentucky, the slave and 
the free States, and took up arms, and upon 
every field, and by the whole power that God 
and nature had bestowed upon them they re 
sisted this attempt to enslave them. What 
then did the President of these United States? 
All the time he by the forces of the United 
States disarmed the Republican party, and 
left them at the mercy of those invaders of 
their rights. 

JOHN BROWN AND HIS RAID. 

Then sprang up this John Brown. I say he 
is the legitimate son of the acts and avowals 
of the Democratic party that they intended to 
take possession of Kansas b}' force of arms, 
"peaceably if they could, but forceably if they 
must," and it was only when these decendants 
of revolutionary fathers took up arms in their 



own defence, and I thank God there were Ken- 
tuekians as well as Yankees fighting there in 
that battle for freedom, and they drove back 
the invaders, and now a great and overwhelm- 
ing majority of the people of Kansas say that 
it shall be free notwithstanding James Bu- 
chanan lifts up his impious hands, and perhaps 
praying that it may be so, says that "Kansas 
is as much a slave territory as South Carolina." 
Is that democracy? In the name of that God 
to whom he so impiously appeals, is it so — is 
it a slave State? Not at all. History tells us 
that just there began John Brown. How it is 
I will state, as it comes to me authenticated. 
To the best of my knowledge and belief, be- 
fore he shed the blood of a single man, one of 
his sons was chopped to pieces in cold blood; 
and another son was dragged in chains by a 
vehicle, until from the heat, the exposure, the 
ignominy, and the torture of the moving chains, 
his brain was crazed, and he went mad; and his 
sister looking upon all these sad calamnitiea 
and scenes of horror, was also crazed. 

Then this man took up the knife, and made 
a war of extermination upon the slavehold- 
ers and the invaders of the soil. There is the 
^ecret of the whole matter, so help me God, 
as I believe I am Cassius Clay, as I stand here 
to-night, I say the beginning of this raid on 
Virginia. John Brown felt that there was no 
protection for him in the Democratic party, 
that the laws of Missouri and Kansas gave 
no protection to him, and that he had once 
more to appeal to the God of Hosts for de- 
fense, and he carried that war on in Kansas, 
and in Missouri, and Virginia. The whole 
story is told; it was nothing but the raid of a 
man injured by aggressions made upon him, 
and these proved to have been began and com- 
pleted by the Democratic party themselves, 
rherefore I hurl back the imputation, and 
history will stand by the record, and will re- 
cord this unwelcmie truth. That is all of it. 
It was no servile insurrection at all. I see be- 
fore me this night a man who committed 
John Brown in Virginia, and I hear from 
other sources, as Senator Mason, that there 
was not a slave rose in insurrection. It was 
a raid; the fruit of Democratic action and in- 
justice; and if it is the thing it is said to be, 
that will yet threaten the peculiar institution 
of the South along the whole border, they, 
the Democrats, are responsible for it by rea- 
son of their avowals and their acts; but the 
Republicans are not. I repudiate the charge, 
and appeal to the country for a verdict. 

THE VICE president's ALLEGATIONS. 

Gentlemen, having said so much prelimi- 
nary and in explanation, I come to the decla- 
ration of the Vice President of the United 
States, as formally put forth by him, sent me 
under his own hand, but whicli speech I am 
told is very distinctly dilTerent from that he 
made in this State House. 

You will pardon me for the length of this 
argument, if it may be so called, embarrassed 
as I am by the difficulty of my position here. 
It is rather more desultory than I had intend- 
ed it should be, but the importance of the 
question to be discussed will, I think, plead 
my justification. 

The Vice President of the United States 
makes against the Republican party ten for- 
mal allegations. He says: 

"I charge that the present and ulterior pur- 
poses of the Republican party are: 



12 



"To introduce the doctrine of negro equal- 
ity into American politics, and to make it tlie 
ground of positive legislation hostile to the 
Southern States; 

"To exclude the slave property of the South 
from all territory now in the Union, or which 
may hereafter be acquired; 

"To prevent the admission, in any latitude, 
of another slaveholding State; 

"To repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, and prac- 
tically refuse to obey the Constitution on that 
subject; 

"To refuse to prevent or punish, by State 
action, the spoliation of Slave property, but 
on the contrary to make it a criminal offense 
in their citizens to obey the laws of the Union, 
in so far as they protect property in African 
slaves; 

"To abolish Slavery in the District of Col- 
nmbia; 

"To abolish it in the Forts, Arsenals, Dock 
Yards and other places in the South where 
Congress has exclusive jurisdiction; 

"lo abolish the international and coastwise 
trade; 

"To limit, harass and frown upon the iasti- 
tution in every mode of political action, and 
by every form of public opinion; 

"And finally, by the Executive, by Con- 
gress, by the postal service, the press, and in 
all other accessible modes, to agitate without 
ceasing, until the Southern States, without 
sympathy or brotherhood iuthe Union — worn 
down by the unequal struggle; shall be com- 
pelled to surrender ignomiuously, and emau- 
cipate their Slaves," 

Now, gentlemen, these are allegations for- 
mally put forth. It is not for me to question 
the motives of the man who makes them, but 
I take the allegations as I find them, and I 
shall attempt to answer them in detail. First 
of all; I appeal to the country and history; 
standing here upon our recorded action, and 
the integrity of our previous character, I plead 
not guilty of the charges; not guilty on every 
count except one; and to that I plead guilty. 

NEGRO EQUALITY SET AT REST. 

First, we are not guilty of the purpose " to 
introduce the doctrine of negro equality into 
American politics, and to make it the ground 
of positive legislation, hostile to tlie Southern 
States." Mark, the crime is here, that we 
have been guilty of " introducing." Now, it 
is well known, so far as common rumor goes, 
— we cannot always judge of the motives of 
men, — that the Dred Scott case was gotten up 
by agreement, in advance of legislation, but 
subsequent to the declaration of the power of 
the Democratic party, to take possession of 
Kansas. Wc did not want any such subject 
introduced into politics. Why y Because 
there was already odium enough attached to 
lis as being the defenders of the rights of the 
negro against the white man. We were called 
already "negro lovers," and it was not to our 
interest to get up an issue of this kind, even if 
we desired so to do. But an agreed ease was 
made, as was reported in Howard's reports. 
The case came up to the Supreme Court of the 
United States from the U. S. District Court of 
Missouri, and although I am a follower of the 
plow, and although he has perl)aps studied 
law all Ills life, I declare that Beriah MaL'olfin 
does not know anytliing about the case. There 
is not a y.iung county court lawyer that is not 
better posted up in this matter. Gov. Magollin 
does not profess to know anything about it — 



that honorable and high-toned gentleman has 
never made it his study — any man can see that 
who reads his inaugural address. John C. 
Breckinridge does not understand it, or he is 
a great hypocrite. He is ignorant of the ques- 
tion at issue, or he is a hypocrite, and intended 
determmedly to deceive the people of the 
United States; but of course, in consequence 
of the respect I have for him, I believe that 
he is utterly ignorant of the questions at is- 
sue in the case. I think I can present them 
so that a man of the commonest understand- 
ing can comprehend the case. I think I can 
present them so that a man of the commonest 
understanding can comprehend the ease. 

I will state the substance of the thing. It 
was a suit brought by a man of color, called 
Dred Scott, first, I believe in the State Courts 
of Missouri, where it was decided that Scott 
was free, then going up, I think, to the Su- 
preme Court of Missouri, wliere the decision 
was reversed and sent back. It was taken to 
the Circuit Court; the pleadings were made to 
this extent, that a plea of abatement was made 
— Dred Scott bringing an action declaring that 
vi et armis^ one Sa'ndford had assaulted him, as 
also Harriet Scott his wife, and children. To 
this, Sandford who is also upon the record and 
admitted to be, I know not if in reality, a cit- 
izen of New York, pleaded in abatement, that 
Dred Scott and his wife and children were his 
slaves, and that being slaves, or rather to use 
the language as used in the pleadings, that he 
was the descendant of African slaves, a man of 
color, a negro, and therefore he could not be 
a citizen of the United States; and Sandford 
called upon the Courts to throw the case out 
of Court, that they had no jurisdiction, and 
that he, (Sandford) should hold as master, 
Dred Scott. 

So far as the Dred Scott decision became a 
law of the United States, it is simply thus that 
after the case was twice argued in the Supreme 
Court of the United States, a majority stand- 
ing seven to two of the Justices, decided that 
a man of African blood, descended from 
parents once slaves, could not be a citizen of 
the United States, and therefore could not sue 
in the Courts of the United States, and tliere- 
fore the Court having no jurisdiction, it was 
returned, with instructions to sustain the Cir- 
cuit Court. That is what they decided. Now 
I desire to state, that, in my humble judgment, 
Dred Scott was not the slave of Sandlord, and 
being a free man and a man of color, accord- 
ing to the Constitution of the United States 
when it was made, he had a right to sue and 
had a right to be relieved from this existence 
of vi et'armis, and that was the opinion of 
Justices McLean and Curtis, and every lawyer 
that has read the decision of the Court in 
Howard's Reports, that I have spoken to upon 
the subject, has invariably said to me that the 
opinion of Justice Curtis is the most conclu- 
sive piece of judicial logic ever presented in 
all the books of judicial decisions. I have it 
at home, and I declare that in my judgment 
there is no proposition in Euclid more clearly 
demonstrated than that. Not that Dred Scott 
had a right to citizenship, to hold othce and 
vote, rights which many white persons, as for 
instance women, have not, but that he had a 
right to the protecticm atibrded by law; that 
being a free man, by being carried first into 
a free State, and then to the Territory ceded to 
the United States by France, he had a right to 
sue and to be sued. He never declared that 



13 



Scott was entitled to all the privileges of a 
citizen, but the Constitution says: 

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled 
to all privileges and immunities of citizens in 
the several States." 

And if Kentucky determines that the black 
man cannot hold office in the Commonwealth, 
a black man coming from Massachusetts can- 
not hold office; he is but entitled to the pro- 
tection of the laws given for the protection of 
his own race and condition. 

The Dred Scott decision was gotten up en- 
tirely by the Democratic party, and it was 
made in 1856, after the election of President 
Buchanan, and intended to sustain the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill. 

In passing, allow me to say that we make no 
issue with the Supreme Court on that subject. 
We acknowledge the Supreme Court decision 
to be the supreme law of the land, nnd deny 
the allegation that we intend illegally and fac- 
tious]}* to resist the decision of that Court, and 
force a kind of citizenship upon the country 
with which we have nothing to do. So far 
then for the Dred Scott decision. 

OBITER DICTA. 

Gentlemen, time passes quickly, and of 
course I cannot go elaborately into the argu- 
ment upon the other part of that which is 
claimed to be the decision of the Dred Scott 
case, that is, that the law of 1787 first passed 
by the Confederation of States, and re-enacted 
by the House of Representatives at its very 
first session under the Constitution in 1789, 
was uuconstitutional. That is the dicta of 
these five Judges. Well, now, gentlemen, just 
let me state one or two strong points that 
every man of common sense can understand. 
It is the practice of all courts — courts of com- 
mon law and courts of equity of the United 
States, and of all courts of reasonable justice 
and common sense on God's earth, from the 
earliest time to the latest day, that when ques- 
tions come up for decision, they decide the 
main question, and that obiter dicta, that is, 
■words spoken incidentally, and not to the 
main question, is not law. There are Demo- 
cratic lawyers that hear me to-night, and they 
■will hear me out in this statement, and it is 
right. The.e are just reasons for it, because 
the attention of the judges being bound to the 
main issue, they must not be held responsible 
for the incidental questions of the case. Now, 
that is what Justices McLean and Curtis tells 
us, and they are, in my opinion, the ablest 
judges upon the bench. I think Justice 
Curtis the ablest Judge I ever read after, and 
he tells us that when the Supreme Court 
decided in the case that it had no jurisdiction 
there, their whole power ceased. That is 
what this judge tells us, that is what the Re- 
publicans say, that is what every honest man, 
unbiased by political associations and^ consid- 
erations, must say. I say it, gentlemen, that, 
in my humble judgment, the rest of the opin- 
ion is not law, and in this I am supported by 
some of the very ablest judicial minds of the 
United States. Not only so, but Justice Cur- 
tis shows that the Supreme Court has decided 
again and again that obiter dicta is not law, 
and is not so to be considered. There are de- 
cisions in that report quoted, absolutely made 
to the effect that these incidental decisions 
that come in are not part of the law of the 
land. Therefore, we say in denial of what the 
Democratic party has said to-day, that it is 



not the law of the land. Therefore, ■we go up- 
on that subject for not changing, rather we 
deny that it is law, and we appeal to the coun- 
try to decide between us. We owe no allegi- 
ance to it as a law of the United Slates, but it 
is yet open for free discussion by the people 
of the United States, that they may deter- 
mine it under the Constitution of the United 
States. To so much we plead guilty. 

THE WORD REGULATE. 

Now, as that is an important question, let 
us dwell yet a while upon it. In the first 
place, let us see what were the terms of the 
old Confederation in connection with it. They 
declared, gentlemen, before they ceded these 
lands to the United States, that these Terri- 
tories should belong to the United States, and 
that the United States should have complete 
control, both political and practical over them, 
that is to say that they yielded the entire^ ju- 
risdiction of the territory, and the United 
States under the act yielding these territories 
to the United States, achieved as they were by 
the common blood and treasure, it was the de- 
termination of all the States themselves to 
yield up the entire control of them, and there- 
fore when the Supreme Court undertook to 
say that that clause of the Constitution which 
says, "The Congress shall have power to dis- 
pose of and make needful rules and regula- 
tions respecting the territory or other prop- 
erty of the United States," does not mean 
what it says, they are forced to the absurd 
conclusion, notwithstanding the object had in 
view in making the cession, that when the land 
was given, the States giving did not mean 
what they said: look to what a forced con- 
struction they are driven. They deny this pos- 
itive grant of power to pass laws by Congress 
to prohibit Slavery in the Territories, and the 
assertion that the word "regulation" is not a 
common terra used by legal men when they 
intend to confer a power. That is the argu- 
ment of the Supreme Court. 

Let us look at that. Four times is the word 
'•regulation" used in the Constitution with re- 
gard to grants of power, and thus, so far from 
being an unusual term, it was a usual one in 
the disposition of power in the United States. 
Anotlier clause says that Congress shall have 
power to "regulate commerce." Does any 
Democrat deny that that is a legislative power? 
What, under it, have they done? They not 
only "regulate commerce" under it, between 
foreign countries and this, regulating foreign 
and domestic trade, but they passed the em- 
bargo. Wliy? Because they had the power 
to make all needful rules and regulations ap- 
pertaining thereto. In the Territories they 
have similar power delegated in somewhat the 
same words. Not only had they the power to 
cherish commerce, but they had a right to 
prohibit and destroy commerce itself. Cer- 
tainly that was a legislative power; and it was 
exercised under this very term "regulate;" 
therefore it is absolutely absurd when the Su- 
preme Court and the Democratic party under- 
take to say that when it was enacted that Con- 
gress should have the power to make all need- 
ful rules and regulations for the Territory, did 
not delegate legislative power. So that the 
very language that they claim would debar a 
grant of power, is shown, by four clauses of 
the Constitution, to carry with it that very 
legislative power, it even extending to the 
taking of life, liberty and property itself. 



14 



Don't they say in the Constitution that they 
shall have the power ':* Such was the under- 
standing of the old framers of the Federal 
Constitution — of the old confederatiou of the 
framers of the act of '87, and although the 
Supreme Court are bound to acknowledge 
that all the territory acquired previous to the 
formation of the Constitution, were subject 
to the control of Congress, they come to the 
conclusion that the Constitution did not 
intend to confer the power at all, but that 
its very exercise was prohibited by the Consti- 
tution. 

Gentlemen, there was a portion of these 
lands, when the Constitution was formed, in- 
tended to be ceded, and it was known by the 
framers of the Constitution that it was to be 
ceded. Georgia and North Carolina afterwards 
ceded their territory for the same reason that 
Virginia ceded Illinois and Indiana, and there- 
fore, how absurd it is to say that the framers 
of the Constitution, when they allowed Con- 
gress to exclude slavery from the territory 
which now is formed into the States of Illinois 
and Indiana, did not give them the power to 
exclude slavery from the whole. It is absurd 
to say that the power existed in one case, but 
did not in another. 

What was the intent and design of the Con- 
Btitution ? What did it do to carry out that 
design? The two most prominent eouclusions 
on earth, that we can have as to what it was 
intended to do, is by what they said was to be 
done and intended to be done, and by what 
they practically did. Eight and six, or four- 
teen times did this Congress carry out the 
power asserting that Congress had all the pow- 
er to make "all needful rules and regulations 
for the Territories," even to the prohibition or 
enactment of Slavery. 

HOW HE CHANGED AN OPINION. 

I am going to own up myself. I confess that 
I always believed, until I read the opinion of 
Justice Curtis, I have always believed with the 
old Free Soil party, that under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, you could not es- 
tablish Slavery in any Territory. I do now 
confess, that after reading the decision of Jus- 
tice Curtis, that it was so clear, and the argu- 
ment so irresistible that they could practice 
legislation in either way, tliat I was bound to 
acknowledge that the power to prohibit also 
carried with it the power to establish, and the 
converse that the power to establish Slavery 
also gave the power to prohibit it. I therefore 
yielded up my old opinion, (I know not 
what others may do,) because in this dicta of 
Justice Curtis, if Congress has power simply 
because there is no limit put upon it, that it 
has power on either side; that is, it has omnip- 
otent sovereign power, althou»h this is a gov- 
ernment in general of limited powers, inas- 
much as the Constitution does not limit Con- 
fress from establishing or abolishing Slavery. 
he power is not denied by the Constitution, 
therefore it has it. There I am bound to 
change my opinion upon that subject, and now 
I agree that Congress has the power to estab- 
lisli or prohibit Slavery, because, as I said, the 
acknowledgment of the one power compels us 
to acknowledge the possession of the reverse. 

Well, now, it is at last brought to this: Con- 
gress has the right to establish Slavery or to 
abolish Slavery in tlie Territories. It is then 
a matter upon which we appeal to the country 
for decision. Will you go for Slavery or Free- 



dom? I believe that to be the doctrine of the 
Republican party, and that is the whole sum 
and substance of the controversy between us. 
We say with Washington, Jefferson, Madison 
and Henry and Lee, and all the distinguished 
fathers of the Republic, not that Slavery is a 
blessing and a Divine institution and all that, 
but we admit it to be an evil, morall}', socially 
and politically, and a weakness in the com- 
monwealth. 

SLAVERY A WEAK INSTITUTION. 

Well now, gentlemen, it has gone forth in this 
commonwealth that I should not be able to 

peak in Frankfort. Why is that T Why is it 
that John Brown spread such consternation 
through all Virginia ? Are we to believe that 

the Virginians are all cowards? No! There 
is ia Virginia just as gallant blood as flows in 
the world; it was simply because Slavery was 
a weak institution from the beginning to this 
time; that it was what James Madison told 
South Carolina and Georgia; it is because 
Slaverv is what Mr. Randolph told Mr. Ever- 
ett. We tell you that it is a source of weak- 
ness in the State, and therefore as patriots and 
lovers of our country we say, to the several 
States enjoy your institution as long as vou 
choose, but so far as we are responsible we go 
against it all the time. There is the wliole 
front of our oflciiding. Is it not right ? 

THE ADMISSION OF SLAVE STATES. 

Another charge made is, that we purpose 
"to prevent the admission in any latitude, of 
another slaveholding State." I deny that tliat 
is the platform of'the Republican party as 
made up in 1856, or as it is to be made up in 
1860, and if you will allow me I will refer to 
the record. I cannot read all of the platform, 
but I give you my word there is no such 
clause .u it. I will read one clause liowever: 
"Resolved, That with our Republican fath- 
ers we hold it to be a self-evident truth that 
all men are endowed Avitii the inalienable right 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hajjpiness, 
and that the primary object and ulterior de- 
sign of our Federal Government was to secure 
these rights to all persons under its exclusive 
jurisdiction;" — [Mark me, now, that does not 
apply to States.] — "that our Republican fath- 
ers, when they had abolished slavery in all 
our National Territory, ordained that no per- 
son should be deprived of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law, it be- 
comes our duty to maintain this provision of 
the Constitution against all attempts to violate 
it for the purpose of establishing Slavery in 
any Territory of the United States, while the 
present Constitution shall be maintained." 

In that part of the platform I have said, I 
believe we were in error. For that reason, in 
the call of the present Convention we leave 
out all that which has reference to the last 
sentence which I read. I will read that call 
to you : 

" A National Republican Convention will 
meet at Chicago, on Wednesday, the 13tli day 
of June next, at 12 o'clock noon, for the nom- 
ination of candidates to be supported for 
President and Vice President at the next elec- 
tion. 

" The Republican electors of the several 
States, the members of the People's party of 
Pennsylvania, and of the Opposition party of 
New Jersey, and all others who are willing tp 
co-operate with them in support of the caudi- 



15 



dates which shall there be nominated, and who 
are opposed to the policy of the present Ad- 
ministration, to federal corruption and usur- 
pation, to the extension of Slavery into the 
Territories, to the new and dangerous politiea. 
doctrine that the Constitution, of its owi 
force, carries Slavery into all the Territories 
of the United States, to the opening of the Af- 
rican Slave Trade, to any inequality of rights 
among citizens; and who are in favor of 
the immediate admission of Kansas into 
the Union, under the constitution recently 
adopted by its people, of restoring: the federal 
administration to a system oi rigid economy, 
and to the principles of Washington and Jef- 
ferson, and of maintaining inviolate the rights 
of the States, and def nding the soil of every 
State and Territory from lawless invasion, 
and of preserving the integrity of this Union 
and the supremacy of the constitution and 
laws passed in pursuance thereof, against the 
conspiracy of the leaders of a sectional party, 
to resist the majoritj' principle as established 
in this government, even at the expense of its 
exiotence, are invited to send from each State 
two delegates from every Congressional Dis- 
trict, and four delegates at large to the Con- 
vention." 

To prevent the extension of slavery into the 
Territories. There is the matter at issue. 

Gentlemen, neither in the platform of 1856, 
nor in the call of Convention for 1860, is there 
any such clause as that the Vice President al- 
ledges, that no more slave States shall be ad- 
mitied into the Union — there is nothing of it. 
It is not a true allegation, and I appeal to the 
record. I appeal from the inferences and alle- 
gation of the Vice President of the United 
States to the country, upon that subject. 

THE SLAVE CODE CONSIDERED. 

Before I pass over this I will say a few words 
with regard to the power that the slaveholders 
claim for the protection of slave property un- 
der the Constitution of the United States, be- 
cause that is a vital question. Gentlemen, 
with all the inconsistency of the Democratic 
party in 1852 and 1856, they never thought of 
this thing: that slavery went under the Con- 
stitution, and by virtue thereof into every 
Territory per se. Never was such an expres- 
sion made use of, but they all admitted that 
no such power existed in or under the Consti- 
tution. Hence, of course, it was proper to 
enact that the people of a Territory were free 
to legislate slavery in or out of the Territory. 
Now, gentlemen, the Democratic party is 
placed in this attitude, that they then knew 
that under the Constitution, and according to 
what they now claim to be the decision of the 
Supreme Court, that every slaveholder has a 
right to go into the Territory with his proper- 
ty, or deceived the people, to the detriment 
of the slaveholder, when they left the matter 
to be decided upon by the non-slaveholders. 
What right had the Democratic party to say 
that they should confiscate the property of all 
the slaveholders of a Territory, and leave their 
property to the tender mercies of the squat- 
ters, who make their way from Germany, Ire- 
land, China, Massachusetts and Kentucky? 
Mr. Breckinridge, or some of your friends, 
answer me, yes or no, did you intend, when 
you stood in favor of "Popular Sovereignty," 
or "Squatter Sovereignty," to confiscate all 
the property of the slaveholders of the United 
States? No sir. You did not think that you 



had the right to carry slavery into the Terri- 
tories. That is the truth of the matter. In 
my opinion, that is what every Democrat be- 
lieved. We say that the belief was right. 
Why? Because all the dicta of all the jurists 
from time immemorial, from Grotius to Mans- 
field, all jurists known to civilization and 
fauie, from the earliest days to this, declared 
that slaves were a peculiar property, unlike 
other property known to men. What does 
the best English reports tell us? Before 1760 
this Avas declared, and by the highest courts 
of the crown — outside of the House of 
Lords. This was declared by Lord Mansfield, 
with this dicta, which I shall read to you, that 
I may be understood, in that case when Cur- 
ran grew so eloquent, when he declared that 
whenever a man stood upon British soil his 
chains fell from him : 

"The state of slavery is of such a nature that 
it is incapable of being introduced on any rea- 
sons, moral or political, but only by positive 
law, which preserves its force long after the 
reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence 
it was created, is erased from the memory; it 
is of a nature that nothing can be suflered to 
support it but positive law." 

That decision has never been questioned in 
this country, until the new light of the Demo- 
cratic party fell upon it in the decision of the 
Dred Scott case, in 1856. I say all the jurists, 
all men at home and abroad, who profess the 
christian religion, and obey the equally imper- 
ative mandate of progressive humanity, con- 
cur in the belief that slavery is so contrary to 
natural law that nothing but positive law can 
support it. Under our Constitution, we adopt- 
ed the common law of England, and that was 
the law of this State, and of others, and it was 
decided again and again in the c urts of Lou- 
siana, and of Kentucky, of Virginia and of 
Tennessee, and in the other States of the LTn- 
ion, I believe, without exception, that slavery 
was local and could only exist by virtue 
of positive law, and, when a citi- 
zen of Lousiana took his slave to 
France, a despotic government, and brought 
her back, her application to be declared free 
was carried to the Supreme Court of Louisi- 
ana, and it was decided that inasmuch as she 
had been carried into free territory, she was 
free, according to all the dicta upon the subject, 
"once free and always free." It has always 
been held that slavery was an instituiton of 
municipal law, and the moment it was carried 
beyond the pall of that law, that moment the 
rights of humanity, and the great reason to 
which all law appeals, stepped in and gave 
freedom; all have determined in the same way, 
every decision has been in the same direction. 

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE. 

I cannot dwell upon this matter to go all 
through the able argument of Justice Curtis, 
but there is no argument which he does not 
produce, to support the position I have laid 
down as being correct, save one. That one is 
this much talked of and much vaunted fugitive 
slave clause. Let me ask j-ou if,under the Con- 
stitution, slavery goes into the territory of the 
United States, what do you want with a fugi- 
tive slave clause? Answer me that. Why would 
you not be protected in your slave property 
as much in any State of the Union if it is pro- 
perty there, and yet you stood in Convention 
week after week, and month after month, and 
I might say, year after year, contending for the 



IC 



j-rnn>r-i^'i\r,n of the rights of the slaveholding 
community to recover fugitive slaves. It was 
all absurdity to quarrel about a power which 
you assert is in the Constitution. You cannot 
prove that the Constitution gives the power. 
It cannot be done. It is in vain that you strug- 
gle agaiuBt the whole authority and common 
sense of ages. 

You now talk of legislative intervention by 
Congress to protect slavery in the territories. 
What do you want with it if the > constitution 
does not give it? What right have you to it? 
I therefore deny, on the part of the Republi- 
can party, that there is any such power under 
the Constitution per se, to carry slavery into 
the territories of the United States. That was 
not the doctrine of the Democratic party of 
1853 or 1856, and only after the enunciation of 
the Cincinnati platform, and the election of 
James Buchanan, did the Supreme Court 
screw themselves up to the point that they 
could say that it was law. Two of the ablest 
and most distinguished jurists declaring that 
it was obiter dicta, and was no law. God grant 
for our freedom, every man's, white and black, 
that you should say in your legislative assem- 
blies" and nationarconventions, that it is no 
law. As I live, it is not the law ! 

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEMOCRATIC CLAIM 

See where it leads. Suppose they have, un- 
der the Constitution, the right to carry slavery 
into the Territories, have you not the right 
to carry those same slaves into Ohio?— 
You have the right to carry a cow or a horse, 
a coat or a watch into Ohio, and if under the 
Constitution slavery is just as sacred and in- 
violate as this species of property, how dare 
Gov. Chase say you shall not bring your slaves 
and take possession of the hotels of Columbus 
and the farms now occupied by honest free- 
men? I tell you why you cannot ; it is because 
the right you assume does not exist. The 
Consti'lution says : , ^ , 

"This Constitution, and the laws oi the 
United States which shall be made in pursu- 
ance thereof, and all treaties made, or which 
shall be made, under the authority of the Uni- 
ted States, shall be the supreme law of the 
land," &c. 

There is the whole substance of the matter. 
If the Dred Scott decision is right, then there 
is not one single foot of any but slave territo- 
ry from the Gulf of Mexico to the hills of 
Maine. If that be true, then indeed there is 
no conflict going on, in the langviage oi Sew- 
ard and the Democratic party, between free- 
dom and despotism; but the conflict is ended, 
and you and I, and all of us, are subject to a 
despotic power which is higher than the great 
dicta of all the learned jurists that have pre- 
ceded us ; higher than the Constitutions of the 
States and the sovereignty of conventions ; 
and last, if not least, higher than the Consti- 
tution of the United States— the palladium of 
liberty to us. If it be so, the conflict is end- 
ed, and we are all slaves ; we are subject to a 
despotic power over which we have no con- 
trol—none on God's earth. There is no ap- 
peal to popular sovereignty or States' rights; 
there is but one appeal, and that is to revolu- 
tion : an apjieal to arms and the God ot Hosts 
—which God forbid ! Therefore, I deny that 
we are fuctiously purposing to prevent the 
admission of any more slaveholding Stales. 

The fourth cliarL^e is that we propose "to re 
peal the Fugitive Slave Law, and practically 



refuse to obey the Constitution on that sub- 
ject." I do not deny that in some of the 
States there has been an effort made of that 
kind, but I do utterly deny that there is any 
such clause in the platform of 1856 or the call 
1860. Without dwelling further upon that, I 
pass it by, saying that I do not care to avow 
that I stand on that subject with Daniel Web- 
ster, the man whom of all others in this coun- 
try, we have styled the expounder of the Con- 
stitution — certainly upon constitutional law 
the highest authority this country or any other 
has ever seen. Mr. Webster, although he was 
over-persuaded, flattered with the idea that he 
would get Southern support by yielding his 
true born opinion, said what, in his speech of 
7th March ? He said "that this was a power 
that belonged not to Congress, but to the sev- 
eral States." That is my belief, but the Re- 
publican party, desirous of harmony, yielded 
it, and struck it out of our platform in 1856, 
and do not propose to incorporate it in the 
platform of 1860. 

OTHER CHARGES REFERRED TO. 

Fifth, "To refuse to prevent or punish by 
State action, the spoliation of slave property, 
but on the contrary to make it a criminal of- 
fense in their citizens to obey the laws of the 
Union, in so far as they protect property iu 
African slaves." Gentlemen, don't we tell 
you in our call that we go for protecting the 
rio-hts of all the States, and so far from hin- 
dering you in the return of your property, 
that we pledge ourselves as a party to defend 
you against your State or my State, and every 
State, or against foreign invasion in the Ter- 
ritories. Of course if we are honest in one 
purpose, we are honest in the other, and we 
cannot be honest in that avowal if we are dis- 
honest in the first imputation. 

Sixth. "To abolish Slavery in the District of 
Columbia." I need not read our platform 
again, but I defy any man to find any such a 
clause in it. 

Seventh. "To abolish it in the forts, arse- 
nals, dock-yards and other places in the South 
where Congress has exclusive jurisdiction." 
There is no such clause as that in the platform 
of 1856, or the call of 1860. 

Ei'dith. "To abolish the internal and coast- 
wise*trade." There is no such clause as that 
in either. 

Ninth. "To limit, harass and frown upon 
the institution in every mode of political ac- 
tion, and by every form of public opinion." 
We make a directly opposite avowal. So far 
from that, we not only are compelled by the 
necessity of the case, but we propose in carry- 
ino- out in good faith this associated brother- 
ho'od of confederated States, not to take 
Emancipationists alone upon our platform, 
not simply to appoint them to office, but we 
propose and invite slaveholders to act in con- 
junction with us, and to assist us in 
carrving out the Government, which 
wc shall iu all probability so soon con- 
trol. How can this be true? How 
can we then intend to harass the institution 
by every mode of political action? Why, 
gentlemen, the thing is impossible in the na- 
ture of things, and unless you have proof that 
we are dishonest, there is no believing that we 
can or desire to monopolize all the offices in 
the country. This allegation cannot he 
against Hs, therefore it falls still-born at our 

While I have been projecting these notes to- 



17 



day, I received a copy of the Cinciuuati Ga- 
zette, one of the leading Republican papers in 
the Union, and probably tlie foremost paper 
in the West, and -whicli probably has the 
largest aggregate circulation— and I find it 
says that we are willing to go Crittenden, 
Botts, Bell, or any other slaveholder, for Pres- 
ident, if he be the choice of the Convention. 
Does that look like excluding you from the 
Presidency, or any other office? Old John J. 
Crittenden, a man that I have always loved and 
admired, a man who, if he ha.l been left unbiased 
to his own noble inspirations, would have stood 
where I stand, where we of the Republican 
p irty stand— by the old Henry Clay Whig 
ground, against the extension of slavery. Let 
me here read what Henry Clay says upon that 
subject, a sentiment which Crittenden no 
doubt has endorsed through a long life. 
The Democrats have got wonderfully in love 
with Henry Clay of late. The old man they 
abused and slandered all his life, but now they 
come to us and say we will defend old Henry 
from your assaults. The man who was perse- 
cuted for a lifetime, the man who went to his 
grave in sorrow under the imputations made 
against him by these same Democrats, is now 
taken up, and they call upon old line AVhigs, 
old Clay Whigs, to come out and crush out the 
Republicans -who stand by the doctrine of 
that same Clay, in favor of the non-extension 
of slaverj-. Henry Clay said in the last year 
of his life, in his last term of public service, 
in his gray-haired old age: 

"Coming as I do from a Slave State, it is 
my solemn, deliberate and well matured de- 
termination that no power, no earthly power, 
shall compel me to vote for the positive in- 
troduction of Slavery either North or South 
of that Une." 

Oh, for shame. Democrats, to claim to be 
the protectors of the fixme and glory of Henry 
Clay and of his principles, when there, by the 
last will and testament that he publicly made 
before the nation, he plants himself ftxirly and 
squarely upon the Republican platform. That 
sentiment I stand here to-ni<,^ht to vindicate, 
and the followers of Mr. CYittenden would 
stand up to defend it if they had full bent for 
their honest inclinations. God grant that he 
himself may stand up to it, and that they may 
change, for as God is, I would not sooner vote 
for any other man than John J. Crittenden, 
for every word that comes from his mouth is 
John J. Crittenden himself, the man that says 
the ground that is good to stand on is good to 
fall on. Yet we are accused of all these 
purposes. 

_ I am pretty nearly through, gentlemen. It 
IS not very often that I get a chance to speak 
to you, and when I do, I want to say as much 
as I can. I can't get even to talk to you 
through the press. I establish a press here 
and there, and when old Cass. Clay gets away, 
they jump upon my followers and put it down, 
and I cjin't speak through the post office, for 
a letter of mine is eiglit days on an hour's 
journey, or it never reaches its destination. 
_ The tenth charge or allegation is substan- 
tially embraced in the ninth, and it is not ne- 
cessary that I should comment upon it. 

ACCUSATIONS WITH ISTEKEST. 

Now " what is sauce for the goose is sauce 
for the gander." [Laughter.] My distin- 
guished friend, John C. Breckinridge, has all 
tas allegations answered by the record— not 
Cassius Clay says so. But he ha? indulged in 



speculation and inference, and I intend to turn 
the tables on him a little in that way. [Laugh- 
ter.] That is so! It is so very late, however, 
that I cannot possibly comment upon these 
various clauses; I will therefore omit discus- 
sion. 

In turn, I accuse Gov. Magoffin, Vice Presi- 
dent Breckinridge,and the Democratic party,on 
the following counts, seveijteen of them, that 
IS prmciple with interest at about the rate of 
seventy per cent. 

1. Of obtaining and iising power under 
false pretences. Read their last platforms. 

2. Of filse pretences, as a Democratic 
party claiming to be the special guardians and 
conservators ot the liberty of the people, and 
yet Ignoring those rights of the people and 
cancelling them by the overthrow of the great 
common law guards of freemen, which secure 
them from the illegal search of the persons, 
papers and homes. Witness, gentlemen, all 
the reported cases of outrage made through 
all the Slave States from th'e begining of the 
government, the formation of the Constitu- 
tion, and ending in the year 1860. Look to the 
records of all the Slave States of the Union 
where outrages of this kind are not only per- 
petrated, but are attempted to be vindicated 
by the press, outrages against which there is 
no redress, and none cv'qu affected to be at- 
tempted to be enforced. 

3. As false in the nullification of the laws 
of constitutional comity. See the case of 
Hoar and others. See the article of the Con- 
stitution which authorizes citizens of the sev- 
eral States to sue in the Federal Courts of 
the United States. You all know how that 
was. 

4. Of violation of the treaty with Mexico. 
There was a war made with Mexico while she 
was at peace with us, where we are told in the 
report that our Gen. Taylor marched amidst 
men, women and children flying from their 
hearthstones in consequence of the invasion 
of the United States forces. [A voice— "Who 
made the war ?"] The Democrats ! They did 
It as they said, "to extend the area of free- 
dom," and the way they now extend the area 
of freedom, I will tell you. I find a Senator 
of Texas was driveft out of the community, 
(or an ex-Senator,) because he said he did not 
believe that it was extending the area of free- 
dom to strike all these rights down: where he 
could not have his own portfolio free from 
search by Judge Lynch. 

5. Of the practice of the Slave trade. Yes, 
gentlemen, distinguished persons in the South 
have boasted openly, not only that they in- 
tend to violate the laws prohibiting the Slave 
trade, but that they have proceeded to carry 
their purposes into execution, and had landed 
upon the Southern coasts what have been no- 
toriously acknowledged to be slaves fresh from 
the coasts of Africa, and we have yet to learn 
of the first punishment for this violation of 
law. 

ADVICE GRATIS. 

Here I remember to speak of those North- 
ern allies that to-day you are afraid to trust. 
You are right. I tell you now, you are right, 
and I am going to give you a little extra ad- 
vice. Some of you were wanting to know 
how long they will stand by you. They will 
stand by you just so long as you pay them, 
and no longer, and the moment you cease to 
pay them, the moment you cease to have pos 
session of the Government, so soon they Avi! 



18 



leave you. That is the kind of .ui^a yuu have 
for your Northern allies. Gentlemen, I take 
it you are all men of sense, and I put it to you 
here to-night, if I was to get up here and say 
that I believed slavery was a divine iu.?titu- 
tion, and that all my previous declarations 
were false, that I was convinced that I had 
been wrong, and that it was preferable to lib- 
erty, and a religious institution fivored of 
God, as Governor Magoffin has said, M'ould 
not every one of you put your hand upon your 
purse for fear 1 would steal your money? 
Ton would at once say, "Tliat man thinks to- 
day as he always did, and in addition to all the 
rascalities we have charged upon him, he is an 
infernal hj'pocrite; we will not trust him." 
It is because I come out and tell you what I 
believe, that you to-day trust me to go among 
your negroes. 

Move the scene over the line, and it is just 
the same. The man who his ever seen the 
sanctity of the hearthstone preserved inviolate 
and who has gone into some common school 
to receive his education, and who has watched 
the unparalleled developments of the free 
States, who reads his primer or his English 
reader and studies the Bible, and rises from 
the reading and tells you that from his obser- 
vation the condition of slavery is the true 
condition of humanity, will some day teach 
you that at last the unjust thing shall not 
prosper, and a lie shall not live forever. He 
who has seen all these things, and turns round 
and tells you in the South, '"^'I have lived under 
all these institutions, and I believe slavery to 
be a good thing, a divine institution, the best 
state ot society, don't you know enough to 
say that that man is not tit to be trusted '! 
Some of your orators said to-day, state the 
truth and make them tell the trvith, survive 
or perish. Tliat is the true sentiment. You 
ought not to trust them. 

I will tell you whom you ought to trust. I 
trust the man who says : " Gentlemen, I don't 
believe that slavery is a divine institution, that 
it is any source of political, social and moral 
good, but I believe you had better try all the 
chemical power of Ileaven and in the winds, 
the steam power and the power of the waters, 
than to hold the African in bondage, because 
after all it is a blunder in an economical point 
of view; and alth mgh we are determined to 
stand by your institutions, don't ask us to 
deny the life which we live out in living let- 
ters, so that all the nations of earth can read. 
We not only believe liberty is preferable, but 
we believe that slavery is a curse to white and 
black." Tliat is the man for you to trust. 

I am here to-day and gone to-morrow, but I 
tell you if ever the time does come when the 
slaveholders need aid to protect them from the 
violence of slaves rising for freedom, that aid 
will come from the men that are opposed to 
the Northern Democracy, and not from the 
Democracy of the North themselves, because 
there is not a logical argument on God's earth 
that can bring them to the conclusion which 
they pretend to draw. Therefore it was that 
Stephen A. Douglas was ready to beat you in 
1857-8, when you were attempting to force 
slavery upon Kansas. He has backed down 
beyond doubt to-day, but if you had not elect- 
ed him Senator, he "would have been in the 
Kepublicau ranks. You arc right when you 
say you can't trust these. (A voice — " We 
didn't say so!") You did say so. I appeal to 
the reports of the convention to bear mo out. 
This was said : "if they would not uaarch up 



to that line sot down, let thein go." Why let 
them go? Because you don't trust them, of 
course. If you trust them you will want them 
to stand by you ; if they are your friends you 
want them all. Mr. Silvertooth said that Ste- 
phen A. Douglas was outside of the Demo- 
cratic party already. Why? Because he stands 
ujjon the Democratic platform of 1856. 

A voice in the crowd. — Did the Convention 
coincide with that view? 

Mr. Clay.— Mr. Graves' resolutions were 
voted down, which I understood to coincide 
with Douglas' view. 

A voice— Was he named? 

Mr. Claj' — If you vote down the doctrine 
and the man that m.akes a speech, you don't 
leave much of the man. (Laughter). I tell 
you Douglas stands no chance. You have al- 
ready degraded him from the Chairmanship of 
the Committee on Territories in the U. _S. 
Senate, are you going to take him up again? 
Your own Senators won't trust him, can you 
believe in a man whose masters are continual- 
ly watching him, pistol and bowie-knife in 
hand. Beckinridge is the boy I believe. 
Guthrie is an honest man, as honest a man as 
the Democratic party has built up for a num- 
ber of years, and that is not saying much. 

FILLISrSTERINO. 

fi. I charge the Democratic party with fillibus- 
tering. Youallknow what that means. Going 
out with armed bands of men from the United 
States, "extending the area of freedom," per- 
forming John Brown raids, entering upon gen- 
eral invasions to set humanity right, when the 
gallant old tar, Commodore Paulding received 
instructions, if he caught Walker" to bring 
him home. The old fellow thought the Pres- 
ident of the United States meant what he said, 
and he went out, ordered his marines out, and 
brought home the individual, and what did the 
President say? Why, said he, "I have a great 
notion to dismiss you from the service. You 

are a d d old fool!" [Laughter.] "Did I 

not tell you. Commodore, at Ostend, before I 
became a candidate of the Southern Democ- 
racy, that we wanted Cuba, and we would buy 
it if we could, and if Spain would not sell it 
we would take it in any way, and do you sup- 
pose that when we say we don't mean to have 
Nicaraugua we don't want to have it? You 
are an old fool." Therefore, I say, as these 
men are not punished, but as Walker goes to 
visit the President of the United States, that 
you are guilty of fiUibustering. If he had 
been taken at sea by any government of suffi- 
cient power abroad' that dare execute the law 
contrary to your sympathy, he would have 
been hung until he was dead, dead, dead, and 
there would have been the last of Billy— the 
blue-eyed man of destiny. 

7. You have established a censorship of the 
press, by a Post-Offiee usuri)ation. 

8. Of a violation of the Constitution, whlcJi 
provides that the citizens of each State shall 
be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States. 

i>. Of sympathizing with foreign despots, 
as Russia and Austria against Hungary. 

10. Of violating the compromise measures 
of 1850. 

11. Of violating the compromises of 1S30. 
1:3. Of the usurpation by tlie Supreme Court 

of political power, in the Drcd Scott case, 
where they undertake to overthrow the decis- 
ions of all the State Courts, and tlie acts of ail 
the Prcsid'-'Jts who lived in the days of the 



19 



revolutiou, and in the assumption by wliatthe 
■Courts say is obiter dicta, of powers belong- 
ing to the legislative department, political 
powers, not judicial. 

13. Of raising a civil war in Kansas, and 
prosecuting John Brown raids, as I have 
shown. 

14. Of introducing a sham "Popular Sover- 
eignty." 

15. Of an attempt to legislate slavery into 
the Territory of Kansas, by this latter day Le- 
compton movement. 

16. Of denying naturalized citizens equal 
protection with natives. 

17. Of attempting to throw the Republic 
into a condition of colonial vassalage, under 
the rule of European power. 

Let us loolc at that. That is the last count 
I find. Mr. Breckinridge, the papers tell us, 
has said — yes, sir, John has said that there is 
trouble brewing. What is the matter, John? 
You and the Democratic party have had pos- 
session of the Government for nearly three- 
quarters of a century; you have put up and you 
have put down; you have had control of the 
domestic and foreign policy of the country; you 
have been omnipotent in States and in "the 
Union, in the Senate and in Congress; j'ou 
have had the executive and the judicial depart- 
ments of the government, and the country is 
sick, is it? Why, what is the matter? Who 
has been doctoring it? Who has caused this 
breaking up of bonds of union of which we 
have heard this day? I am sad, you are sad, 
we are all sad. It is indeed a sorry sight,, to 
see a people in time of peace and prosperity 
dragged to the verge of dissolution, and the 
curious part of it is,''and the cruel part is, that 
if one of you had a wife or daughter that you 
tenderly love, as you ought, you would not act 
as you now do with this Union, that you boast 
of so much. 

God knows, as bad a man as I am thought to 
be, and as Kentuckiaus are thought to be in 
general, I love my wife above all women, she 
is in health and she goes and comes, she smiles 
and cries, works and plays, and does all those 
things that nature designed her to tlo, and if I 
call in some doctor upon some imaginary or 
real affliction of the great internal course of 
health, and the doctor brings her to bed, the 
rose fades from her cheek, the bright eye be- 
comes dull, the full and round form becomes 
emaciated and I say, "Why Doctor, the wo- 
man is dying, in the name of God what are 
you going to do ?" "Well," says he, "the 
woman is dying: I am sorry, but I am going to 
vindicate myself in history." Great God, are 
we American people, the free people of the na- 
tion to die, and if the Union is dissolved, he 
Intends to vindicate the Democratic party in 
history. 

I tell you, good sense calls for a change of 
Doctors. Tlie Democratic party has brought 
you on the road to the devil. Change your pi- 
lot — your rulers. Turn them out a"ud put 
other men at the helm. 

A Voice — Who do you propose ? 

Mr. Clay — I am willing to take for instance 
this much calumniated man Seward, Chase, or 
McLean, Lincoln, Bates, Bell, Botts, or old 
Kentucky's favorite son, Crittenden (applause), 
jf we could have him fairly and squarely upon 
the platform. Any body except the old Doc- 
tor. I have got a sad distate for him. (Laugh- 
ter.) 

DISSOLtmON. 

Let us look a little at that tJiing of dia.wlu- 



tion. A body would suppose with Canada far 
removed, that when it has become dangerous 
for me to speak where there are millions of 
white men to a few hundred thousand 
slaves, that slave property had be- 
come unsafe. Dissolve the Union and 
move the line to the north of the 
Ohio, and would you have additional security * 
Does any man suppose — is any man mad 
enough to suppose that if tliese people, once 
bound together by a common brotherhood of 
suffering, by association in churches, by a com- 
mon Christianity, by the ties of education, 
cannot remain in peace in the;LTnion, that they 
would remain in peace out of it ? Does Mr. 
Breckinridge or Gov. Magoffin suppose such a 
case as that ? 

You have j'our answer when you see Gov. 
Wise, who in the last Presidential race, talked 
of seizing upon the arsenal and marching to 
Washington to take possession of the archives, 
and preventing the inauguration of a Repub- 
lican President, saying, now if there is any 
fighting to be done it is to be done in the Un- 
ion, and not out of it; when you see your 
Democratic orators talking round and becom- 
ing the defenders of the Union. Don't you 
all begin to see the folly of this thing? Don't 
you all see, what all men of common sense 
must see, that outside of the Union there lies 
less security for slave property? Certainly 
you do ! No body supposes that there would 
be anything other than the way Mr. Caldwell 
said to-day. Do you suppose you would have 
peace ? No, sir, it would be war to the knife 
— and the knife to the hilt. That is what 
would be the result. Where is your security 
for your slave property then ? Would you 
eight millions of white men enter upon a con- 
test with twenty millions and ho.d your 
slaves at home". It is not to be heard 
of. More safety ! No ! The fixct is you 
would have to sacrifice your negroes, like 
France and Hungary did their slave property, 
at once, at the beginning of the war. Then 
what would jou gain so far as you are slave- 
holders? What are the non-slaveholders to 
gain? Why it reminds me of a history, that a 
friend of mine, an ingenuous man, used to tell 
of a white man and an Indian. They got into 
a fight, and after a while the Indian proving 
too hard, the white man took to his heels, 
and while outrunning the Indian, the latter 
cried out, "stop, white man, stop!" and the 
white man halloaed out, "step ! I'll be damn- 
ed if I do." Why, gentlemen, you ask all of 
us non-slaveholders of the Union who have 
borne all the oppression, to sacrifice all the 
liberty we have, to return to those rules and 
regulations of despotism, against which we 
rose up in arms in 1776. 

What do you propose to give us in lieu of 
this great Union as a protection? Why, the 
Charleston Mercury and the Richmond En- 
quirer say, "We will send to Louis Napoleon, 
and we will ask him to lend us some troops to 
defend us!" Oh, shame! shamej! Are you 
going to bring us to this? Is this the reward 
that you offer us, that you will call 6n Louis 
Napoleon, the despot "of France, and his. 
troops, and they will defend us against these 
Northern traitors and fanatics. Are you rea- 
dy for that. Democrats? We have been led 
long by Democratic leaders. Is this the feast 
to which you have invited us,, that after you 
can no longer be preserved, that they wiU get 
Louis Napoleon, (they can't trust Victoria, 
she ha-s too many notions of freedom about 



20 



ber,) to preserve us? What does it mean? 
It means going absolutely back into French 
despotism. Are you ready for that? 

The Vice President is unfortunate in his al- 
lusion to the great Athenian orator. It is we 
M'ho defend the liberties of the people, and 
they who propose to call in Philip of Macedon 
— Louis Napoleon, is it not? The battles in 
Kansas, M'hich were fought for the common 
liberty, is the reproach of Eschinos ! Not 
only these, but all the ^oryof the illustrious 
dead is in vain, if the Dernocratic party con- 
summate the subjecting us to a foreign and 
alien despotism ! I would that I could evoke 
the genius of the illustrious defender of Gre- 
cian liberty, that my voice, like his could 
touch the hearts of my countrymen with the 
diyine fire of my own aspirations, till they 
they would be again ready to cry out with one 
voice, "Let us march against Philip ! " 

No, gentlemen. That is the reason I come 
here to-night, because I heard this thing is 
talked of— because it is threatened. I come 
to tell you as I live, as we all live, there is not 
a single true Republican but that will shed 
his last drop of blood before he will submit 
to this; they will fight you for a thousand 
years ere they will submit; they will not re- 
lapse into French servitude. 

We preach no new doctrine, we invoke no 
new God, but standing by the old doctrine of 
'76, upon which our fathers fought and died, 
we say, with Crittenden, that 'that which is 
good to stand upon is good ground to fall up- 
on." We invoke the people of the North and 
South to stand by the Constitution of the 
United States, and vindicate it beyond the 
possibility of a doiibt. AVho are the men that 
have avowed the intention to dissolve the 
Union? Look at all our record. Not a single 
county meeting, nor district convention, nor 
State assemblj-, nor national convention of 
the Republican party has ever declared 
that, in any emergency, will they dissolve 
the Union. No, sirs, we say all the time that 
we submit to Democratic rule while you 
slaveholders rule us, and we submit because 
we know of no other policy, no other altei'- 
native except it be force, and when that is 
used all law is silent, and the Government be- 
comes a despotism; whenever you resort to 
violence, you have an anarchy as has Mexico, 
which is continually at war because it does 
not stand by any Constitution or law. All 
our pledges and our antecedents prove that 
we are bound to be loyal to the union of these 
States; and therefore, I say we can safely 
claim your suffrages, not taking us by our 
avowals, but taking us by our aces. If we 
have submitted for eighty years, we are wil- 
ling to submit for eighty years more, unless 
we can persuade you to take hold of those 
glorious privileges which we feel to be right 

helper's crisis. 

There is a man in Carolina whose father 
was born, it is said, upon North Carolina soil, 
and we know not how many centuries before 
his ancestors lived there, and it so happened 
that he belonged to that large class of North 
Carolina that may be called the working class, 
:Le non-slaveholders. lie saw the influence 
'i slavery upon the interests of that class of 
...en, and he broke away from the trammels of 
•Lat party, and published a book, and he tells 



us that however good a thing slave labor is- 
for the slaveholder, free labor is better for the 
non-slaveholders. He takes up the census of 
the United States-, and he compiles it all un- 
questioned, and shoAvs how the institution of 
the South affects the mass. He appeals to 
■ these masses, and asks them to see for them- 
selves, and act upon their knowledge thus ob- 
' tained, if this thing is not according to the 
; doctrine of Jefferson, this which I believe was 
i pretty good Democracy once ? 
: Now about this book I am going to be 
{ frank. I did recommend this book. I say I 
! have read this boo ' carefully, and there is not 
: a single incendiarj- doctrine in it — there is not 
! a single appeal to the slave. If it be insur- 
i rection among a people professing to be free 
j to appeal to the legal white voters of the coun- 
try, for whose protection the Constitution 
professes to be made, to rise from a serfdom 
I to the same power and control of the govem- 
! ment that the free laborers and free people of 
I the North have done, it is insurrectionary. 
' Let me go one step further, and say, that 
there were some places in that book publish- 
ed by him, that we did not regard as just; and 
inasmuch as we conceived that the slavehold- 
ers held their property on the tenure that the 
British held it, we thought it was a political 
question— we thought that the slaveholders 
should not be taxed. I wrote to him that 
that was a foolish thing, but it was under- 
stood that all these objectionable things should 
be expunged, as 3Ir. Blair, of Missouri, has 
said. He says ifwas imderstood that these parts 
were to be stricken ont, not that they were 
incendiary, but that it was a blunder not to 
be urged. 

I tell you, gentlemen, I stand on Helper's 
pamphlet, and you may make the most of 
what I say. 

(Cries of "Go on," and "We will stand by 
jou all night") 

I have stood by you all the long days of my 
youth and manhood, extinguished all the as- 
piration of ambition, suffered ignominy and 
contempt, been denounced, spurned and avoi- 
ded by the men whose interests I was arguing, 
by the white man, and wronged by the black 
man; but still holding myself true to one jmr- 
pose, I stand there sliill. What to me now are 
the rosy tints of life, with my hair silvered over, 
with my sinews stiffened with age ; in the 
course of human events, I have but little time 
to remain here. I say, Kentuckians, come war, 
come peace, I trust in God I may have the 
fortune to stay there during the rest of my 
days, and that although the millions may de- 
part from me, there will be in Kentucky one 
standby true to the last, whose aspirations may 
be, however visionarj', however theoretical, 
true to the banner which I would have float 
over us. The same old banner of 1789— each 
stripe with the progress of the ages paling into 
a brighter galaxy of stars ! In the language 
of Webster,' its motto no such miserable in- 
terrogatory, as what is all this worth ? Nor 
those other words of delusion and folly, "Sla- 
very and Union,"— far less "Slavery first and 
Union afterM'ards,"and yet more "S'lavcry with 
or Aviihout Union !" But his own glorious 
sentiments— for the whieli and with the which 
— with filial piety I walk backwards and cover 
his late political nakedness! "Lieertt and 
Union, kow avd Forever, one and Inseper- 

54 W 




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